...but if you really watch BYU play you see there is waaaaaay more nuance to BYU basketball than merely just haphazardly chucking a bunch of 3's as that phrase implies. The 3pt shot is just one ingredient in the entire recipe that makes up our team.
For example the shallow fan on CB would say in the Utah game that we died by the 3 but we had way more impactful issues than cold shooting from 3.
1). FT shooting was a big fail ( shot 58% from the line and missed 3 straight front ends of 1-and-1's... that's potentially 6 pts we missed out on)
2). we only had 2 fast break pts (BYU is #6 nationally in fast break pts with 17.75 a game)
3). We only had 13 assists (we're #1 nationally at 22 a game)
4). We had 34 bench points (we're #3 nationally at 40 5 a game)
5). We didn't defend the 3pt line well In the first half and gave up 45 first half points.
6) we didn't compete hard enough on the boards in the first half. We're #2 nationally in reb margin at +13 and we finished only at +1.
It's intellectually lazy to throw around phrases like "live by the 3..." with this BYU team because soooooo much more it's behind our secret sauce than merely haphazardly chucking up a bunch of 3's as that saying implies.