TPBL's scoring rose 3.7 points on better shooting, not pace

TPBL teams scored 97.5 points a game in the 2025-26 regular season, 3.7 more than the 93.8 they scored the year before. It would be natural to read that as a faster league. It was the opposite. Teams took fewer shots and had fewer possessions, and they scored more because they made more of them.

Then 2026-27 began, and the first eight regular-season games average 107.4 points a team. That jump is real in the box scores, but it has a different cause from last year's, and the sample is small.

The figures come from the league's published team statistics for each regular season: 126 games in 2024-25, 126 in 2025-26, and the first eight of 2026-27 through November 1, 2026. In all three seasons the made twos, threes and free throws add up to the points scored exactly. Possessions are an estimate: field goal attempts, minus offensive rebounds, plus turnovers, plus 0.44 times free-throw attempts. Where we say "per 48 minutes" the totals are scaled by each season's minutes on court, which takes overtime out.

Last year: better shooting

Per team, per game	2024-25	2025-26	2026-27, first 8 games
Points	93.8	97.5	107.4
Points per 48 minutes	93.2	97.4	103.3
Field goal attempts	82.2	80.6	87.8
Field goal percentage	41.0	43.5	43.1
Three-point percentage	30.0	32.6	34.9
Free-throw percentage	67.6	71.5	72.8
Turnovers	17.2	15.8	18.8
Estimated possessions	94.6	92.6	102.6
Estimated possessions per 48 minutes	94.0	92.5	98.8
Points per 100 possessions	99.1	105.3	104.6

Between 2024-25 and 2025-26 the number of possessions went down by about two a game. Points per 100 possessions went up by 6.2. Effective field goal percentage, which gives threes their extra half point, rose from 47.2% to 50.3%.

The shot mix hardly moved. Teams took 34.0 three-pointers a game in 2024-25 and 33.6 in 2025-26, which is 41.3% and 41.7% of all field goal attempts. They made more of the ones they took: 30.0% to 32.6% from three, 41.0% to 43.5% overall, and 67.6% to 71.5% from the free-throw line. They also turned the ball over 1.4 fewer times a game.

Two other things changed, in the same year. Home teams won 64.3% of games in 2024-25 and 59.5% in 2025-26. And games decided by five points or fewer rose from 25 to 36 out of 126, even as overtime games fell from seven to two.

This year: more possessions, not more efficiency

The 2026-27 start looks different. Teams are taking 87.8 shots a game, up from 80.6, and turning the ball over 18.8 times, up from 15.8. Estimated possessions are 102.6 a game against 92.6.

Two of the eight games went to overtime, one in a single extra period and one in two, so the raw totals overstate the pace. Scaled to 48 minutes, the teams score 103.3 points on 98.8 possessions. That is still about six possessions faster than last season's 92.5. Points per 100 possessions are 104.6, almost the same as last year's 105.3. The start is faster, not more efficient.

Neither earlier season began at this pace. The first eight regular-season games of 2024-25 averaged 89.8 points a team, and those of 2025-26 averaged 99.1. The seven preseason games of 2026-27 averaged 109.9, against 95.4 and 96.2 in the preseasons of the last two years.

Home teams have won two of the eight games so far.

What the numbers show, and what we read into them

The numbers show that last year's scoring rise came from efficiency, not volume, and that this year's start comes mostly from volume. They also show that eight games is not many: two overtime games and a few high-scoring ones move a mean a long way.

What it means is our reading. The league's data does not say why the pace has changed, and we are not claiming a cause. The preseason and regular-season samples point the same way, which makes it harder to dismiss as noise, but 15 games is still 15 games.

The test is easy to state. If the 2026-27 pace is real, estimated possessions per 48 minutes should stay near 99 as the sample grows, instead of falling back toward last year's 92.5. If it falls back, this was a fast start. DEA's record last season is one place to watch the effect, since a four-point margin may mean something different at 103 points a game than at 97. And the schedule will give the sample time: 116 regular-season games are still to be played.