Stat Pack Week 2: Marquette's stifling start, Alabama's hotspot

College basketball season is officially in full swing. This time last week, teams had only played one game, if that, and many were against non-Division I opponents. Now, almost every team has at least one Division I game under their belt, and data is starting to come together. Sample sizes are small, and buy games have led to some very inflated numbers, but we don’t wait seven months between games to not overreact to small sample sizes and inflated numbers!

​Last week, we discussed that college basketball had seen its highest 3-point attempt rate through two days in KenPom history at 41.6%, up from last season’s 39.6% through two days. A week later, the rate is staying steady at 41.5% of shots coming from deep through nine days; last season through nine days was at 39.9%. With the sample growing larger, the likelihood of this becoming a historic season for perimeter jumpers increases.

But enough on the 3-point shooting…for now. Here is the Week 2 Stat Pack.

[The vast majority of statistics and rankings in this article are through games played on Nov. 9. Only some have been able to updated through Nov. 10.]

Marquette is "killing" it defensively.

​Shaka Smart has made “kills” a defining aspect of his tenure as Marquette’s head coach, so much so that the program is running a promotion this season for fans to win free beer when the team achieves three kills in a half. The term signifies when a team generates three consecutive defensive stops, and the Golden Eagles are doing it better than anyone to begin this season. Albeit against two sub-300 KenPom opponents, Marquette has already generated 24 kills; taking into account tempo, the team’s 18.7 kills per 100 possessions leads the nation — second-best is Illinois at 15.6, followed by LSU and Kansas.