Bradley basketball is having a historic 3-point shooting season. Here’s how it rates

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The Bradley Braves have the highest 3-point shooting percentage among all teams this season in NCAA Division-I college basketball.

Bradley (23-7) has one regular-season game remaining, a 1 p.m. Sunday tip against Northern Iowa, to maintain its lead over the other 354 programs listed at NCAA.org.

Bradley sits at 40.87 percent through 30 games, tops in the nation — and a mark that would put this team second all-time in program history. BU’s 2006-07 team shot 42 percent from 3-point range, good for third nationally that season. No other BU team has cleared 40 percent from long range since the NCAA introduced the 3-point shot in 1986-87.

Duke Deen, a 5-foot-8 guard, leads Bradley in raw 3-point shooting — an explosive shooter who will be remembered as one of Bradley’s best. He is 96-for-134 (41%), the made 3s ranked second all-time in a single Bradley season behind Jeremy Crouch’s 118 made 3s in 2007-08. Deen also is second all-time in career 3s; his total of 254 just passed Nate Kennell and sits behind only Crouch’s 262.

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“He’s as elite as they get,” Bradley coach Brian Wardle said. “Duke is kind of a unicorn. There’s not many Duke Deens out there. There’s not many players like him who can do what he does at his size. He’s unique, and we’re just happy he’s wearing that Bradley jersey every game.”

In BU’s last game, a win at Valparaiso, Deen came up huge with five 3-pointers in the second half after BU went 0-for-7 from long range in the first half. “I got the shots up and tried to carry this team, do what we do best and that’s shoot 3s,” Deen said. “Once everybody sees one or two fall, we all start hitting some.”

Deen has made three of more 3s in each of the last seven games. He is 32-for-65 in that stretch, for 49.2 percent.

How does Deen rank among the point guards in Wardle’s coaching era at Bradley?

“Oh man, I got a great one on my (coaching) staff in Darrell Brown,”…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/bradley-basketball-having-historic-3-092222612.html

Author : Journal Star

Publish date : 2025-03-01 09:22:00

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