Not just this year, I mean. For the past 5 or so years we've been awful at shooting free throws. Why? Is it coaching? Do you coach free throws? Lack of practice? I just don't get how we can have these talented players who can twist and turn in the air to get to the basket, and still make the bucket, yet when they get a freebie with no one in their face, they can't. Maybe we should petition to let opposing teams play defense when we're at the foul line. Because we shoot a lot better it seems when our players have a hand in their face.
Had to check, but ESPN has us as the 299th FT shooting team out of 346. Not surprising. 64.7% To realize how bad that is, the top 50 teams are shooting between 75-80%. Wisconsin is leading the country handily at 82.5%. Wouldn't that be nice? On another interesting note, we are 13th in the country in FTs attempted.
And it isn't quite this simple, but if you compare our FT percentage (64.7%) to our points/possession (1.09), it still looks like we're better off, as a team, by going to the line. .647 * 2 = 1.294 points per trip to the line. Obv this doesn't account for missing the front end of a 1 and 1, so the number is slightly lower but it's likely still in our best interest to go to the line. HOWEVER, based off my rough math it appears that teams are almost always correct to foul Tristan Thompson every single time he gets even decent position near the basket. He's shooting 48% currently, so .48 * 2 = .96 points per trip. Hack-a-TT might get us into some serious trouble come tourney time if he can't improve his FT shooting.
It looked like that air ball from the line by TT last night got a smile out of Matt Hill. If it wasn't so sad, it would be pretty funny.
Not sure how teachable free throws are after a certain point, but one thing our track record of the last 5 years or so does demonstrate is that free throw shooting doesn't factor in very much in our recruiting. And since we have the best team in the country right now (according to many observers), maybe that's been the right decision. When faced with a super talent like TT, you take him, regardless of how poor he is at the line. Why he's so poor is another, harder, question to answer. But the principle of choosing talent regardless of free throw percentage seems to be working out ok.
I want to show TT at least a little bit of love, the guy did nail two clutch FT's down the stretch at Kansas.
