Kentucky wants to meet the three-point shooting standard from last season

One of Mark Pope's biggest goals last season was to shoot a lot of threes. In fact, 30 to 35 threes per game. That was the standard set early last season, but it wasn't met in many games at all. Last summer, in an interview with KSR, Kentucky assistant Cody Fueger, who has been an assistant under Pope since 2019, explained Pope's style of play.

Fueger noted in the interview that in Pope's system, a big goal offensively is to get up 35 threes per game, "and if you turn down an open shot, you're coming to sit on the bench." Fast-forward to the beginning of the season, when Mark Pope set a goal of at least 30 three-point attempts per game in his first season at Kentucky. That did not happen, and Pope addressed that when talking to media on Tuesday, adding that he wants to chase that goal next season, one of the few areas he felt that they failed in.

"I failed miserably at that last year. I'd like to remedy that. It's really important to us. I felt like we accomplished a lot last year, but that was one of the spaces that was disappointing. It was hard. Part of it was roster changes made it a little bit more complicated, but that's an important part to how we play the game. It's an important part to how the game is played now and so we'd like to chase that." Pope on Kentucky's three-point shooting.

Last season, Kentucky averaged 23.5 attempts from three-point range per game, boasting a 37.4 shooting percentage from beyond the arc. It's efficient, but the amount of attempts is definitely way below the standard that Pope and the staff set at the beginning of the season. It's clear the Wildcats needed more from their best shooters, which included five players shooting 35 percent or above, but Pope is looking to answer that need next season. Players like Kam Williams, who shot 41.2 percent from deep last season, and Jasper Johnson, who shot 36.3 percent last season with Overtime Elite, are on paper, seen to be Kentucky's top shooters in terms of volume heading into next season. Trent Noah will also need to be a solid contributor again off this bench, this time looking for a bigger role, and he can thrive in a shooting role.

Looking at the numbers on next season's roster, Kentucky will need some players to step up in terms of shooting if they want to meet the shooting standard that was failed to be met last season with a team that looks to have had more efficient shooters than what is to be expected of Pope's next squad.