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The Golden State Warriors took the NBA by storm with their willingness to shoot 3-pointers from anywhere, at any time. They won a title, played for another and changed the way teams think about the 3.The precedent was set in college basketball, where current Louisville coach Rick Pitino set the trend and the rest followed.Rick Pitino went to it right away, but everybody else didnt, Villanova coach Jay Wright said. Gradually, everyones realizing the effect and power of that shot.Pitino, then coaching at Providence, embraced the 3-point shot immediately after it was added to college basketball in 1986. The Friars went to the 1987 Final Four behind sharpshooter Billy Donovan and their ability to knock down the 3.Though teams were reluctant to follow suit at first, the 3-point shot became a viable weapon in college basketball. Smaller teams saw it as a way to compete with bigger, more athletic teams, while the teams with big frontcourts like the 3 to help space the court.The percentage of shots taken from the 3-point arc reached an all-time high during the 2015-16 season, with teams combining for 35.4 percent. Three of the four schools that reached the Final Four attempted more than 40 percent of their shots from behind the arc: National champion Villanova (42), Syracuse (42) and Oklahoma (40).Contested 2-point shots dont win games in college or the NBA, said Northern Arizona coach Jack Murphy, an advance scout for the NBAs Denver Nuggets from 2006-09. So I just think youre seeing a lot more teams play smaller or play with more capable 4-men.The trend in the college game makes sense.The NBA 3-point arc is 23 feet, 9 inches from the basket, while the NCAA line is 19-9. The shorter shot is not only easier to make, it broadens the range of players who can hit it.Zone defense is far more prevalent in college, creating opportunities for teams to shoot over the top or work the ball inside and kick out to shooters.College basketball also has a much wider range of talent; a skinny, pure shooter might be able to thrive in the college game, but usually has no shot at playing in the NBA.And theres this: Outscoring your opponent takes a lower shooting percentage from 3-point range than inside the arc.The one thing: One out of three 3s equals one out of two 2s, Arizona coach Sean Miller said. You think about that. If youre a 37 percent 3-point shooter, that doesnt necessarily get anybody excited, but if you take good 3s and you make 37 percent, thats a good shot for your team. Because 1 of 2 from 2, everybody signs up for 50 percent from 2.Its more than just the way the college game is set up. A transformation of skill sets contributed.Almost since the inception of the game, coaches took their biggest players, parked them near the basket and left them there so they could shoot from close range.As the game evolved, so did the aspirations of the biggest players on the court.Instead of just catching the ball in the post and shooting hook shots, they wanted to be ballhandlers and perimeter shooters. These big kids worked on their skills and, after years of resistance, their coaches began to help them.The tallest players often arrived on college campuses with an entirely new cache of skills and coaches embraced it, using their ability to shoot the ball to stretch defenses.Youre seeing a lot more thought put into coaching on the youth level, Murphy said. Theyre putting kids in positions where they can handle the ball and shoot perimeter shots. I mean, the national championship was won by a 3-point-shooting big man. Thats just what youre seeing in the game.That big man was Villanovas Kris Jenkins.The 6-foot-6, 235-pound forward is a bruiser inside, but also has deep range on the perimeter. Last April, he hit one of the most dramatic shots in NCAA Tournament history, pulling up without hesitation for a long 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Wildcats a 77-74 victory over North Carolina.The Wildcats philosophy wont change with their title defense, either.Im OK with 38 to 40 percent, Wright said. Thats good for us.Based upon the statistics, so are many other coaches.---AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this story. Cheap 76ers Jerseys . The Montreal Canadiens announced on Friday that the veteran forward will return to the teams line-up on Saturday night when the Habs visit the Nashville Predators. Fake 76ers Jerseys . -- Nathan Pancel scored twice as the Sudbury Wolves defeated the North Bay Battalion 4-2 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. https://www.cheap76ers.com/ . Brett Kulak and Jackson Houck of the Vancouver Giants were each charged with assault causing bodily harm on Aug. 18, according to the B.C. court services. Custom Philadelphia 76ers Jerseys . Despite dominating possession, Schalke needed an own goal from Nicolas Hoefler for the breakthrough a minute before the interval. The Freiburg midfielder misjudged Jefferson Farfans corner and bundled the ball into his own net. Wholesale 76ers Jerseys . -- Jimmy Walkers first PGA Tour trophy came with a special gift tucked inside. RIO DE JANEIRO -- For Sale: One elite athlete, lightly used. Will swap citizenship, move to your country and even marry to compete for your Olympic team if the price is right. (Note: All marriage proposals must include a photo.)---When it comes to the Olympics, a lot more mercenaries -- er, athletes -- change allegiances than youd think.Here at the Rio Games, Bahrains delegation of 30 athletes includes exactly four Bahraini natives. Twenty-three of Qatars 39 athletes were born somewhere else. Its handball team of 14 players includes 11 foreign-borns, including Marko Bagaric, who helped lead the Qataris to an upset win over Croatia, the land of his birth.He felt bad for Croatia but got over it soon enough.The worst feeling was during the national anthem, Bagaric said. Ah, but what can I do?While oil-rich, Gulf states game the system most often, theyre hardly the only nations that seek to flip athletes like used-car dealers. The 550-plus strong U.S. delegation includes 46 athletes -- about 8 percent -- born elsewhere. China is so dominant in table tennis that one in five of the 140 competitors spread across 55 teams were born in the worlds most populous nation.The reasons for what noted Olympic historian David Wallechinsky calls a braun drain and others a passport swap or transfer of allegiance are varied. In some cases, like Chinas table-tennis players, American basketball and baseball athletes, or Kenyas long-distance runners, the talent pool at home is so deep that reserves with no chance to make the first team are still better than any other countrys best.Some athletes take advantage of their ancestry and others gain citizenship through marriage or relocation. But the International Olympic Committee rules governing such moves are so laughably lax that mercenaries in the games are every bit as prominent as in other big-time, big-money sports like soccer. All such moves require is agreement by both nations Olympic committees, some of that consensus no doubt influenced by cash.Qatar, for example, bought the entire Bulgarian weightlifting team in 2000 for a reported $1 million, awarding citizenship and new names to all eight athletes involved.But only one of them, Angel Popov -- renamed Said Saif Assad just in time for the Sydney Games -- returned to his new home with aa bronze medal.dddddddddddd That left some Qataris wondering whether the money would have been better spent making sure Bulgarias notorious doping program was included in the deal.Undaunted, the Qataris bought Kenyan long-distance runners Stephen Cherono and Albert Chepkurui three years later. That didnt work out much better.Nation shopping, yet another name for the practice, has become prevalent enough in track and field competitions that when the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) convenes Saturday, finding a way to tighten up the eligibility for the movement of athletes is near the top of their agenda.Soccers worldwide governing body, FIFA, may be the most corrupt outfit in sports, but their rules on nation shopping are both simple and effective: Once an athlete has played for a country in an internationally sanctioned tournament at the senior level, hes bound to that country for life. No exceptions.Both Wallechinsky and Bill Mallon, a historian and statistician with the U.S. Olympic Committee, would like to see the IOC adopt a similar measure. Wallechinsky also thinks a limit on foreign-born athletes on each national team, or the number allowed to compete in any given sport, might work as well.Mallon also said removing the exception allowing the national Olympic committees involved to override the rule already on the IOC books might turn the trick. It currently states athletes can switch countries provided at least three years have passed since the competitor last represented his former country.I think you could make very specific exceptions, for examples, like marriages, he said.But a moment later, Mallon pulls up a file on his computer screen and notes that of the 952 married couples that have competed in the games over the years, 190 have involved a couple where the husband or wife hails from a different country.He had no idea what the divorce rate for the group might be. But it seems someone who would walk away from his or her country wouldnt find it much harder to walk out on a spouse.---Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org or Twitter.com/JimLitke ' ' '