One of the most optimal techniques the likes this game has never seen before has just be released to the public as of Sunday night, January 29th, 2018. Starting 2018 strong for Mario Hoops 3-on-3 speedrunning, American speedrunner, UndertakerofSouls, proved the point that if you think a certain run is 100% optimized...chances are good it's not. Demonstrated in his Mushroom Cup Any% (Normal) run, UndertakerofSouls was able to shave-off 15 whole seconds from my previous World Record time of 17:13, in which he ended up getting a 16:58. It is the first sub 17-minute Cup category this Speedrun.com page has seen and it was all thanks mainly to the new technique - Last Second Shot.
Last Second Shot is literally what the name implies - Shooting the ball within the last couple frames before the timer runs out (so in this case about five-hundredths of a second, give or take) to avoid the extra jump-ball cutscene to save time. It's ideal to make sure you charge the ball right underneath the Basketball Hoop for more of a guaranteed shot. This strategy can be preformed right before the timer runs out for the first or second round of each game, obviously with the intention of having as little coins as possible for a base score of 20 points per game.
As to how practical the use of this technique will take you throughout each cup is questionable. It's essentially free to use for the Mushroom Cup and Flower Cup, both on Normal, as the AI difficulty is not as complex. However, the difference in AI difficulty from the Flower Cup to the Star Cup is rather drastic as most of the time they will not give you a moment's rest to take a shot, especially at the leisure of trying to get it in nearly frame-perfect time. So for Star Cup Any% (Normal), it's up in the air. For Rainbow Cup Any% (Normal); however, it's practically guaranteed that such opportunities will not pop-up. To extend this concept even further, it goes without saying that any cup on Hard difficulty will show how unrealistic this strategy truly is. If you have played this game even casually, you know what I am talking about when I say that the computers are monsters.
The only possible way I could even see this technique used in Star Cup Any% (Normal) and so on is if: 1.) You get a star (Which is incredibly unrealistic) 2.) You get the luckiest oppurtunity ever to make the shot under the basket (Also very unrealistic) 3.) You do a charged 3-pointer shot at the exact correct time of release (Extremely tricky as the computer will most likely block, swipe and steal, or ground-pound)
With all of this in mind, it's worth pointing out how your defense will have to be phenomenal as the opposing team's offense and defense will be much greater, as well as all the items that could get in your way.
While a dunk could serve this purpose as a substitute, all the previously mentioned variables still apply.
