Over the past few days, ESPN has taken to looking back at the 25-year history of three-point shot, so it seemed only appropriate to give our own rankings of some of the best shooters from distance the SEC has seen since the introduction of the shot in 1986. So in alphabetical order, here is one man’s list.

You Know the SEC's All-Time Three-Point Marksman Would Be On This List

• Barry Booker, Vanderbilt, 1986-89 (246 3FG, 46.0%). Booker arrived in Nashville the same year the three-point shot arrived in college basketball. All he did was establish the conference record for three-point proficiency (minimum 300 attempts) and helped start the Commodores’ streak of three-point field goals. Vandy has made a trey in all 816 games they’ve played since 1986-87, joining UNLV and Princeton as the only three schools to make at least one in every game the arc has existed.
• Pat Bradley, Arkansas, 1996-99 (366 3FG, 40.0%): Bradley arrived on the scene the year after Scotty Thurman departed. Bradley shattered Thurman’s records for makes and attempts and set the SEC record for consecutive games with one three with 60 straight, 13 better than the previous record.
• Travis Ford, Kentucky, 1991-94 (190 3FG, 44.5%): Paired with Jamal Mashburn, the Missouri transfer helped the Wildcats return to the Final Four in 1993. He established the SEC’s single-season three-point percentage mark that season shooting an incredible 52.9% from the arc (101-for-191).
• Shan Foster, Vanderbilt, 2005-08 (367 3FG, 42.1%): While Chris Lofton shined as the league’s pre-eminent three-point marksman, within the same state, Foster more than held his own. Entering his senior year as a 39.7% shooter, Foster made an SEC single-season record 134 threes in 2008 en route to earning SEC Player of the Year.

• Lee Humphrey, 2004-07 (288 3FG, 44.4%): On a team that won back-to-back NCAA titles and featured five NBA players, Humphrey hit numerous big three-pointers for the Gators. In Florida’s four Final Four games, Humphrey shot 51.4% from the arc, hitting on 18 of his 35 attempts.
• John Jenkins, Vanderbilt, 2009-present (246 3FG, 44.0%): When Doug Gottlieb tabs you as the best three-point shooter in the game today, you deserve a spot on the list. As a freshman, Jenkins connected on 48.3% of his three-point tries and remains a 44.0% shooter for his career.
• Chris Lofton, Tennessee, 2005-08 (431 3FG, 42.2%): It would be hard to start with anyone other than the conference’s all-time leader (and fourth in NCAA history) than Lofton. Lofton thrived under Bruce Pearl making at least 100 three-pointers each of the three years he played under the head coach.
• Allan Houston, Tennessee, 1990-93 (346 3FG, 42.4%): Houston set the SEC record for three-pointers (since broken by Lofton, Foster and Bradley) with 346. Not just a three-point specialist, Houston finished his career with 2,801 points, second in league history, trailing only “Pistol” Pete Maravich.
• Scotty Thurman, Arkansas, 1993-95 (267 3FG, 43.2%): Did any SEC sharpshooter make a bigger three-pointer than Thurman’s last-minute dagger against Duke in the 1994 title game? In three years in Fayetteville, Thurman shot at 42.7% from the arc as part of Nolan Richardson’s “40 Minutes of Hell.”

EMoyer (47 Posts)

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at 7:51 am by EMoyer and is filed under microsites, sec. Tagged: allan houston, barry booker, chris lofton, john jenkins, lee humphrey, pat bradley, scotty thurman, sec, shan foster, three-point shooters, travis ford. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.