Vanderbilt Basketball: Following injury, Aaron Nesmith’s season deserves more praise

Nesmith’s historic shooting

Nesmith was well on his way to have one of the most historic 3-point shooting seasons in college basketball history. He’s was making 52.2 percent of his shots from deep on 8.2 shots per game before falling to his foot injury.

To put that in perspective, since the 1992-93 season only 4 players have ever shot above 50 percent from downtown on over 8 3-point attempts per game: Nesmith, Dru Kuxhausen (McNeese State; 2019-20), Jalen West (Northwestern State; 2015-16), and Adam Gore (Cornell; 2006-07). It’s important to note, West and Gore made that mark by only playing in one game in their respective seasons.

So to put it more fairly, Nesmith and Kuxhausen were/are on their way to having shooting seasons we have simply never seen before. Line those two up side-by-side and Nesmith owns the edge.

Nesmith’s shooting 

• .522 3P% on 8.2 3PA

Kuxhausen’s shooting 

• .504 3P% on 8.4 3PA

Another important thing to note when comparing two of college’s most efficient scorers: Kuxahausen averages 15.4 PPG and only makes 0.6 2-pointers per game; Nesmith was averaging a whopping 23 PPG, making 3.2 2-pointers per contest.

Nesmith is a multi-faceted, multi-level scorer. Basketball nerds get excited about his excellent 3-point percentage, but he also makes a solid 55.8 percent of his shots when at the rim. Nesmith wasn’t only just one of the most efficient college 3-point scorers in history before his unfortunate foot stress fracture, he was simply one of the most efficient offensive players who took the floor.