These are the best of college basketball times if you like scoring in the men's game. A glance at KenPom shows that Division I's efficiency on offense is higher than it has ever been to this point in a season since at least 1999.
And give the credit to shot volume. After all, we've seen D-I shoot just as accurately (last year) or even a hair better (in the late teens) than what we're witnessing now.
The efficiency that today's teams are achieving is also a result of the sheer frequency with which they're attempting shots. Indeed, shot volume in D-I is at an all-time KenPom high. Thanks primarily to a declining turnover rate, one might call 2024 the golden age of shot volume.
This volume can be measured with an item we like to call a shot volume index. Our index pegs the number of attempts from the field that a team would record in 100 possessions of (rather improbably) zero-free-throw basketball. For simplicity, we'll look at 80 major-conference teams here.
Let's give it up for this season's "most likely to record a scoring attempt" honor roll.
Shot volume's 2024 'big four' in major-conference play
1. Texas A&M Aggies
Shot volume index: 105.7
Yes, Texas A&M. However inadvertently, the Aggies are conducting a fascinating basketball experiment in 2024. Just how important is shot volume, really, when you aren't connecting on shots?