The Wiz Posted December 19, 2019 Author Share Posted December 19, 2019 47 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said: It's a math problem because of French's FT woes and his propensity to get to the line. Despite missing last game French has still taken over 20.5% FTs. It is fairly well established 2 1/2 years into his career with a large sample of FTs that French is about a 35.6% FT shooter (his career avg). DI average this season is 69.9%. This means that with French dragging down our average the rest of the team will have to shoot better than 78.7% in order to get us up to average. That would be top 15 team shooting for the remaining members of the team. Richmond actually shoots 79.4% as a team. This is a fairly tall order. If you add in Goodwin shooting over 17.6% of our FTs even at his 56.6% career average (which seems to be generous given this season's 47.7% rate), you can see that it gets even more difficult. With French and Goodwin taking so many FTs at abysmal and bad %s respectively, the rest of the team would need to shoot over 85% to get us up to the 69.9% DI average. Currently, the #1 FT shooting team in DI is Western Illinois at exactly 85%, so the remaining members of our team outside of French & Goodwin essentially need to be slightly better than the best FT shooting team in order for us to be just average. Collins (54.8%) tied for 3rd most FT attempts with Perkins and Bell (50%) with 5th most FT attempts makes the math even more difficult. However, their averages aren't very big sample sizes and the roles game to game can fluctuate. Bottom line, it is going to be near impossible to fix our FT woes while French & Goodwin are key players. Given their style of play and poor FT %s, teams are going to put French & Goodwin on the line a lot. I don't think anyone would argue that they should play less or play a different style so they stop shooting so many FTs. The best we can hope for is that they improve their FT%s, but historically that is very difficult for players to do (see Shaq's career). It is that math that makes the defensive FT% stat even more amazing. I understand how teams can do it to us, as we have some weak shooters....but we have done it to 11 different opponents. ....Opponents are shooting only 62.1% against us. While we have faced a few weak teams , we have also faced some good FT throw shooting teams. In any case, it is this stat ...opp FT shooting... that is helping lessen the blow of our own FT shooting....Hmmm ...maybe those big heads and balloon tubes in the student section are working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 I would attribute poor opponent free throw shooting to our physical style of play. We commit hard fouls which cause players to miss due to the physical jarring they just took. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wiz Posted December 22, 2019 Author Share Posted December 22, 2019 Breaking news....The Bills climb out of the cellar. The modest improvement in yesterday's FT shooting (60%) coupled with the Army's inability to shoot straight (13-26...50%) propelled The Bills up to 352. While this is still an F- , it is small step toward improvement. Tip o' the cap to Bell , Perkins and Hargrove who shot 92% combined (11-12) and took the majority of the FTM ... 11 of the 15 made. I think this is indicative of what's going on with the team as a whole...improving in all facets of the game...some by a lot ...some by a little. That is what up trending teams do.....Now onto Miss Valley St...#351 HoosierPal likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 2 hours ago, The Wiz said: Breaking news....The Bills climb out of the cellar. The modest improvement in yesterday's FT shooting (60%) coupled with the Army's inability to shoot straight (13-26...50%) propelled The Bills up to 352. While this is still an F- , it is small step toward improvement. Tip o' the cap to Bell , Perkins and Hargrove who shot 92% combined (11-12) and took the majority of the FTM ... 11 of the 15 made. I think this is indicative of what's going on with the team as a whole...improving in all facets of the game...some by a lot ...some by a little. That is what up trending teams do.....Now onto Miss Valley St...#351 You would think that Army would be better free throw shooting team Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiseAndGrind Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 1 minute ago, brianstl said: You would think that Army would be better free throw shooting team Free throws aren't free. Free throws cost a buck o five. brianstl likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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