Newly arriving coaches often employ a bit of unorthodoxy to make a mark. In 1985 new Clemson coach Cliff Ellis went with scrambling defense and a decidedly uptempo offense in a staid league. Within a year the afterthought Tigers, hitting a comfortable stride with players like twins Horace and Harvey Grant, went from the ACC cellar to an NIT berth. By 1987 they posted 25 wins, a second-place league finish, and an NCAA bid.
Recently the fashion has been firing threes; just a few years back the Boston
Celtics surfed a tide of 3-pointers to an NBA title.
Pat Kelsey’s reputation from his time at Winthrop and College of Charleston promised in deed if not word that he would place a strong emphasis on scoring from the bonusphere as key to resurrecting Louisville’s program in 2025. Under Kenny Payne, the Cardinals had derived 27.8 percent of their points from threes in 2024, finished last in the ACC, with eight wins overall. Those Cardinals ranked last in the ACC in threes made and 3-point conversion rate.
Kelsey came in and delivered a 27-8 record and the ACC’s second-place team. Significantly, the ’25 squad ranked near the ACC forefront in 3-point scoring (35.8 points per game), trying 999 threes in 35 games. (Overlooked was a less than even 3-point conversion rate — .328.) The Cards earned an NCAA bid and a toehold in national consciousness.
Last year Louisville kept firing and led the ACC in scoring (84.26, just ahead of SMU). UL tried more threes than anyone else in the conference, and converted more, hitting 11.6 per game on solid .360 bonusphere bombing.
This season, infused by generous NIL funding, the Cards are prominent in the early polls, with a strong chance to stay there.
Luke Loucks tried a similar 3-reliant approach last season in establishing his Florida State program. In part to correct for the ACC’s worst defensive rebounding, Loucks’ group liberally launched threes, earning 38.8 percent of their scoring that way, second only to Louisville. FSU tied NC State for eighth and finished 18-15.
Now FSU needs to end its run of five straight seasons shooting under a breakeven percentage from outside. The first real test of Loucks’ approach came this past weekend against Florida.
By the way, the accompanying chart also hints at how well California did last season in virtually unsung fashion. You didn’t hear Mark Madsen’s name mentioned as a 2026 candidate for ACC coach of the year. He got one vote as Jon Scheyer rightly was honored with 51. Meanwhile the Golden Bears quietly cashed in on their ACC-best foul shooting, and jumped from 14-19 and 15th in 2025, to 22-12 and tied for seventh.
The chart below spares readers generally extraneous information — the five programs with new coaches are excluded, as their teams’ 2026 oncourt characteristics under preceding management are now largely irrelevant.
| HOW THEY GET THERE How Pct Of Points Achieved (2026 ACC Stat Rank in Parens) |
||
|---|---|---|
| School | %Pts By 3 |
%Pts By FT |
| Louisville | 41.4 (1) | 18.2 (8) |
| FSU | 38.8 (2) | 19.1 (7) |
| Virginia | 38.2 (3) | 17.7 (11) |
| N. Dame | 37.8 (4) | 18.5 (9) |
| Stanford | 36.0 (5) | 21.1 (2) |
| Cal | 35.4 (6) | 21.3 (1) |
| Pitt | 34.8 (7) | 16.7 (13) |
| Wake | 33.6 (8) | 20.6 (3) |
| Va. Tech | 32.6 (9) | 19.5 (6) |
| Duke | 32.1 (10) | 19.7 (5) |
| SMU | 29.8 (11) | 16.9 (12) |
| Miami | 24.5 (12) | 18.6 (8) |
| Clemson | 24.1 (13) | 20.2 (4) |
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