Best Use of the 3? In Moderation The 3-point shot has become one of basketball's most exciting ways to close a gap late in the game. Jeremy Lin launched Linsanity with key 3s that sealed Knicks wins. But if you are on the 3-point bandwagon, you might want to jump off. The team shooting a lower percentage from beyond the arc won 32 of the first 48 N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament games this season (after the play-in games), won 7 of 8 Round-of-16 matchups and all four regional finals. That's 11 of 12 down the stretch to the Final Four, in the games that expose any weakness a team has and rewards strengths. Missouri took a whopping 53 percent of its shots at 3-point range while being upset by Norfolk State, which shot 32 percent on its 3s, and Duke busted more brackets shooting 45 percent 3s, while losing to Lehigh's 35 percent. Three breakaway 2s brought the crowd to its feet as Kansas rallied to beat Purdue. One of those ended in an alley-oop pass and dunk à la the Clippers" Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Florida crashed and burned shooting blanks on its second-half 3s against Louisville. The former Texas football coach Darrell Royal used to say that when a team passes, three things can happen and two of them are bad. In basketball, five things can happen when shooting too many 3s and four of them are bad. On the good side, the team can make the 3. On the bad side, the team will get off fewer shots, get to the line less often, rebound a lower percentage of missed shots and score fewer points. Other than that, fire away. According to 1986 N.C.A.A. Division I statistics, the year before the love affair with 3s started in college basketball, the typical team scored 54.7 points from the field on 57.3 2-point field goal attempts per game (less than 1 point per shot). Adding 14.7 made free throws brought the game total to 69.4 points per game (free throw accuracy has been remarkably constant: almost exactly 69 percent since 1965). In 1991, Year 5 of the 3-point era, teams took 23 percent of their 60.6 shots a game from beyond the arc. The team scored 60.8 points from the field (just over 1 point per shot, led by the newly minted 3 with 1.09 points per shot). Adding 15.9 made free throws brought the total score to 76.7, 7.3 points per game more than in 1986. Too much is never enough, even in coaching. Since 3s could generate more than 1 point per shot, coaches directed teams to go from 23 percent to today's 33 percent of all shots, but total points dropped. Since 2004, teams have scored a bit over 69 points per game, putting them right back where they were in 1986. We can understand the anatomy of the 20-year scoring decline from the 2011 N.C.A.A. statistics. The typical college team shot 55.3 times per game, 5.3 fewer times than in 1991. In putting up about 4 more 3s than in 1991, the typical team got off about 9 fewer 2s. Score from the field was 54.5 points on those 55.3 shots, less than 1 point per shot , creating 6.3 fewer points from the field than for 22 percent 3s. Chalking up 14.5 free throws, 1.4 fewer than in 1991, we get today's 69 points per game, 7.7 fewer points per game than in 1991. There are fewer fouls due to shooting fewer 2s. That was then, this is March Madness now. There have been 60 winners and 60 losers, going into the Final Four, so we have 120 team performances. The 30 teams shooting the lowest percent of 3s (average of 22 percent 3s) took more shots, 56 to 53, than the top 30 3s-crazy teams (average of 46 percent 3s), scored more points from the field, 57 to 54, drained more free throws, 15 to 11.5, scored more total points, 72 to 65.5, while rebounding a greater percentage of missed shots, 36 percent to 30 percent. Like a microscope, the later stages of the tournament will show any weaknesses. Among the Round of 16 teams, Florida was an accident looking for a place to happen. Leading up to its game with Louisville, it was second only to Wisconsin among the 16, taking just under 50 percent of its tournament shots from downtown. In the first half against the Cardinals, Florida scored on 7 of 10 3s (2.1 points per shot, double the average). Its second-half penalty for violating the law of averages was to hit 1 of 10 3s (0.3 points per shot). For the game it had a reasonable 1.2 points per shot (8 3s on 20 attempts). Louisville took 16 3s but 44 2s for 60 shots (27 percent 3s) to Florida's 20 3s and 28 2s for only 48 shots (42 percent 3s). Florida went home, Louisville advanced. The message in all of this is that it isn't necessary for the ball to get frequent-flier miles around the perimeter. College teams from 1991 and today's most successful teams aggressively penetrate the arc and mostly take the higher percentage 2s. There is still plenty of time to kick out for a 3 or take an open look in the first place. N.B.A. teams shot 22 percent 3s in 2010-11, about the same as for the college teams in 1991 and just below what the Final Four teams have shot in this year's tourney: Kentucky (22 percent), Kansas (25 percent), Louisville (27 percent) and Ohio State (31 percent). Looking only at percent 3s, Kentucky would beat Kansas in the final. Memo to coaches: stick to about ¼ threes: total shots, free throws, rebounds and total points will all take care of themselves. Ray Stefani is professor emeritus, California State University, Long Beach, and a sports statistical analyst.