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Free Throw Woes


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Fair points - the issue is more who shoots the FTs then what the team % is.  If you get Jacobs, Perkins, and Goodwin shooting we could easily be a 70% FT team.  The problem is French gets his 10 FT shots usually earlier in the game and he hits 3-4 so the team is always fighting up stream.  If the other 3 shoot earlier then French has less pressure and his impact is less on the others.  I know Goodwin is not a great FT shooter like the other 2 but honestly he can shoot 60%.

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Just now, cheeseman said:

Fair points - the issue is more who shoots the FTs then what the team % is.  If you get Jacobs, Perkins, and Goodwin shooting we could easily be a 70% FT team.  The problem is French gets his 10 FT shots usually earlier in the game and he hits 3-4 so the team is always fighting up stream.  If the other 3 shoot earlier then French has less pressure and his impact is less on the others.  I know Goodwin is not a great FT shooter like the other 2 but honestly he can shoot 60%.

Yep.   And when others have an off night - such as when Jacobs and Perkins each go 0-2 (which happens to the best) and French and Goodwin both struggled, we are really, really bad. Taking the pressure off French to be our only interior scorer (Bell) and stretching the defense to make them play more honest will really help him.

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3 hours ago, Clock_Tower said:

We are really not as bad of a FT shooting team as some make us out to be.

We are the second worst free throw shooting team in the country.  No way to spin that.  Just serves as contrast to show how good we are at other things.

I firmly maintain that if we are an average free throw shooting team, at 65-70%, we are undefeated right now, or maybe have 1 loss to Auburn.

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4 minutes ago, jimbofive said:

We are the second worst free throw shooting team in the country.  No way to spin that.  Just serves as contrast to show how good we are at other things.

I firmly maintain that if we are an average free throw shooting team, at 65-70%, we are undefeated right now, or maybe have 1 loss to Auburn.

Nah. Seton Hall clowned us. A better free throw percentage doesn't save that game.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Army, previously the only team in the nation worse than us shooting free throws, went 13-14 from the stripe the other night.  Go figure.

That now puts us dead last, and by a decent margin.  We need to weather these injuries, and hope not to drop another game because of our inability to connect from the line.  Here's hoping we can fine tune things.  At large still alive.

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1 hour ago, philliken said:

Army, previously the only team in the nation worse than us shooting free throws, went 13-14 from the stripe the other night.  Go figure.

That now puts us dead last, and by a decent margin.  We need to weather these injuries, and hope not to drop another game because of our inability to connect from the line.  Here's hoping we can fine tune things.  At large still alive.

We could do that or close if we have the right shooters taking the FTs.  I bet if you looked it up that will be what happened.  We talked about this before, if French, Goodwin, and Collins don't take first 10 FTs then our avg can be pretty good.  The problem is once those 3 go 3-10 it takes 7-10 next and that only gets us to 50% which close to our avg.  It only gets worse because those 3 are shooting some of the next 10 so pretty hard to get 7-10.  We shoot about 50% because the other guys simply have to shoot 70-80% just to get there.  

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42 minutes ago, wgstl said:

After watching a decent amount of ku and WVU this year, im sorta over FT's.  Both of those schools are poor FT shooting teams.  Id rather improve our FG% than FT%

100%. Our 3PG has started to come around as well. Javonte starting to shoot well from outside is a game changer. He may be as good of a pure scorer as there is in the league.

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1 hour ago, wgstl said:

After watching a decent amount of ku and WVU this year, im sorta over FT's.  Both of those schools are poor FT shooting teams.  Id rather improve our FG% than FT%

Agree

My only problem with it are things like last night when Bell gave the ball back to Goodwin who was immediately fouled. We all know they are going to miss plenty of free throws but let’s try and keep it out of their hands come crunch time.

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I'll just go back to my theory that w/ JGood and French it's mental. Simple, they choke at the line everybody who plays us knows this. Yet they are needed in crunch time. If u were the opposing coach what would you tell your guys to do? Hack 'em. It's a real quandary for Ford; u need 'em but then again you don't. French's last attempt was laughable, a freaking air ball. That's like having a 2 footer and leaving it short. JGood missed his wide right. That's like playing the break on a 2 footer. You jam the thing home. Forget the break. It's mental. They both need to see a shrink. 

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Let's try to put this topic to bed...probably not ...but I will try.

First , let me start by saying we are an average shooting FT team...What???  Didn't I see that we were the worst in Div 1...Of course, I have put it into every report card  on the spread threads....going back to last year.  Yes , we were just as bad last year..... so what is this average stuff about?

Let's start with some numbers and rankings....

First there is the one we all know,  FT%....57.6%  making us the worst in D1...Grade F- ...A miracle last night by Army (shot 94% ...13-14)  dropped us to last place.

Next there is FTA/ gm...23 ...Grade A...22nd ITN

If we take the 23 Att/gm and multiply it by 57.6% that comes out to an average of  13.25 pts/gm (Grade C...an average team)...our opp have been averaging 18.5 FTA with  70.6% or about 13.06 pts/gm or an average of .0.19 pts /gm in favor of the Bills.  FTM is the only stat that really counts.

Looking to last year, when we were just as bad... 2nd worst in D1 and again under 60%....Bills FTM were 13.4 pts vs opp  13.1 pts /gm...a 0.3pt advantage /gm....and that was for a whole season.

The point is that poor shooting doesn't affect us much because of these extra shots we get. In most of the games this year we have had more FTA then the opp.  Last night was one of the few times we didn't have the extra shots and it almost came back to bite us. Any time we have the same or fewer shots/game, we are in trouble. Again , I don't think that will happen much going forward as the trend will continue....because... 1) we are a big strong team and those teams get fouled more and...2)  there is the mentality to foul us more because we shoot poorly....that strategy fails as long  as we keep shooting at least 50%.

Last night we needed 4 more FTA to out shoot LaS at the charity stripe...worth 2 more pts to the Bills.  Yet, in order to make our so-so FG% average of 44% ...we needed 2 more 2s = 4pts.

I will echo what others have said in this thread....let's concentrate on the FG%.

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27 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

Let's try to put this topic to bed...probably not ...but I will try.

First , let me start by saying we are an average shooting FT team...What???  Didn't I see that we were the worst in Div 1...Of course, I have put it into every report card  on the spread threads....going back to last year.  Yes , we were just as bad last year..... so what is this average stuff about?

Let's start with some numbers and rankings....

First there is the one we all know,  FT%....57.6%  making us the worst in D1...Grade F- ...A miracle last night by Army (shot 94% ...13-14)  dropped us to last place.

Next there is FTA/ gm...23 ...Grade A...22nd ITN

If we take the 23 Att/gm and multiply it by 57.6% that comes out to an average of  13.25 pts/gm (Grade C...an average team)...our opp have been averaging 18.5 FTA with  70.6% or about 13.06 pts/gm or an average of .0.19 pts /gm in favor of the Bills.  FTM is the only stat that really counts.

Looking to last year, when we were just as bad... 2nd worst in D1 and again under 60%....Bills FTM were 13.4 pts vs opp  13.1 pts /gm...a 0.3pt advantage /gm....and that was for a whole season.

The point is that poor shooting doesn't affect us much because of these extra shots we get. In most of the games this year we have had more FTA then the opp.  Last night was one of the few times we didn't have the extra shots and it almost came back to bite us. Any time we have the same or fewer shots/game, we are in trouble. Again , I don't think that will happen much going forward as the trend will continue....because... 1) we are a big strong team and those teams get fouled more and...2)  there is the mentality to foul us more because we shoot poorly....that strategy fails as long  as we keep shooting at least 50%.

Last night we needed 4 more FTA to out shoot LaS at the charity stripe...worth 2 more pts to the Bills.  Yet, in order to make our so-so FG% average of 44% ...we needed 2 more 2s = 4pts.

I will echo what others have said in this thread....let's concentrate on the FG%.

I understand your logic but how many extra attempts are we getting because people know we aren’t a good foul shooting team?  I think your numbers are a bit off because of this.  I wonder how many FTA a game we’d average if we shot 70% as a team.  I bet not 23.

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35 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

Let's try to put this topic to bed...probably not ...but I will try.

First , let me start by saying we are an average shooting FT team...What???  Didn't I see that we were the worst in Div 1...Of course, I have put it into every report card  on the spread threads....going back to last year.  Yes , we were just as bad last year..... so what is this average stuff about?

Let's start with some numbers and rankings....

First there is the one we all know,  FT%....57.6%  making us the worst in D1...Grade F- ...A miracle last night by Army (shot 94% ...13-14)  dropped us to last place.

Next there is FTA/ gm...23 ...Grade A...22nd ITN

If we take the 23 Att/gm and multiply it by 57.6% that comes out to an average of  13.25 pts/gm (Grade C...an average team)...our opp have been averaging 18.5 FTA with  70.6% or about 13.06 pts/gm or an average of .0.19 pts /gm in favor of the Bills.  FTM is the only stat that really counts.

Looking to last year, when we were just as bad... 2nd worst in D1 and again under 60%....Bills FTM were 13.4 pts vs opp  13.1 pts /gm...a 0.3pt advantage /gm....and that was for a whole season.

The point is that poor shooting doesn't affect us much because of these extra shots we get. In most of the games this year we have had more FTA then the opp.  Last night was one of the few times we didn't have the extra shots and it almost came back to bite us. Any time we have the same or fewer shots/game, we are in trouble. Again , I don't think that will happen much going forward as the trend will continue....because... 1) we are a big strong team and those teams get fouled more and...2)  there is the mentality to foul us more because we shoot poorly....that strategy fails as long  as we keep shooting at least 50%.

Last night we needed 4 more FTA to out shoot LaS at the charity stripe...worth 2 more pts to the Bills.  Yet, in order to make our so-so FG% average of 44% ...we needed 2 more 2s = 4pts.

I will echo what others have said in this thread....let's concentrate on the FG%.

Good analysis as always, Wiz, but throw out the stats at end of games. It may come down to hitting FTs. 2 minutes left we're up by 4. What's going to happen? If JGood or French gets the ball FOUL THEM! The odds are in our favor. Chuck the FG STATS. It' comes down to FTs. U miss and the opponent goes on on to score it's now a 1 or 2 pt game. What to do? Pray French or JGood gets the ball and foul them again if they do. Again odds swing to opponent. FG stats don't tell the whole story is my point. Shoot 60% from the field but if it gets down to the wire by two or three foul the Billikens! 

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8 minutes ago, Slowry said:

I understand your logic but how many extra attempts are we getting because people know we aren’t a good foul shooting team?  I think your numbers are a bit off because of this.  I wonder how many FTA a game we’d average if we shot 70% as a team.  I bet not 23.

We would probably have fewer FTA but we wouldn't need as many because we would be shooting 70%...It's all about FTM....plus we we'd also pick up some extra FTA at 70%  making the front end of some 1 & 1s

 

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9 minutes ago, slu72 said:

Good analysis as always, Wiz, but throw out the stats at end of games. It may come down to hitting FTs. 2 minutes left we're up by 4. What's going to happen? If JGood or French gets the ball FOUL THEM! The odds are in our favor. Chuck the FG STATS. It' comes down to FTs. U miss and the opponent goes on on to score it's now a 1 or 2 pt game. What to do? Pray French or JGood gets the ball and foul them again if they do. Again odds swing to opponent. FG stats don't tell the whole story is my point. Shoot 60% from the field but if it gets down to the wire by two or three foul the Billikens! 

Make sure Perkins or Hargrove have the ball at the end of the game. Substitute Bell for French at least on defense. In other words put the foul shooters in.

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I was screaming at my tv when JBJ handed it back to Goodwin on that inbound! I know he’s a freshman and seems to shy a bit from pressure situations but even he has a better chance of sinking both and needs to wait for the foul that was obviously coming in that situation. No way JG should take those shots. 

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Here's the sad truth.  THIS TOPIC IS NOT GOING TO GO AWAY SO PEOPLE NEED TO GET OVER IT AND ACCEPT THAT IT WILL BE A DISCUSSION.  We are not a average FT shooting team.  We are not just a bad FT shooting team, WE ARE THE WORST.  You can't get any worse than the worst.  This has cost us games.  This is going to cost us more games, and possibly a NCAA tournament bid.  We should have at least 2 more wins against teams that would clearly have us in the bracketology already.  This team has no margin for error when you can't make FT's to close out a game or keep building leads.  People want to focus on better FG%.  Great.  While we're at it lets work on rebounding, assist to turnover ratio, defense, etc.  All of that is wonderful.  Great plan.  Every aspect of the game can be worked on and you may get some improvement, but FT's are something that no matter what---they will be a huge part of the strategy used against us.  EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO AT THE END OF GAMES OR DOWN THE STRETCH TO BEAT US.  If we could change that it just got a lot harder to figure out a game plan against us....BUT NO.  WE ARE JUST GOING TO KEEP PRAYING WE DON'T LOSE TOO MANY BECAUSE OF THIS.  It may not get any better until after French and Goodwin graduate, but I can't believe that nearly 3 years into a 4 year career we are still having this trouble.  At some point someone has to sit these guys down and explain that they either try something different or that for as hard as they work and battle, they are hurting the teams chances to do something that will be over in the blink of an eye.  A 4 year career goes by fast.  There are only 4 chances to make a tournament.  Even if you move on to play pro, while you are in college you want to go to the tournament.  The NCAA doesn't hand out at-large bids like candy at Halloween.  I've heard some quotes from some of the guys that seem to accept or downplay the FT issue.  I understand they may not want to dwell on it, but at this point you need to make a point and drive it home.  Last night we were lucky to get the win.  Making a FT could have possibly kept us out of OT.  We may not get as lucky next time.  At this point in the season most anyone who will contribute to the team knows the plays.  Working on offense and other things is not to be ignored, but is it really going to make us any better than what we are?  Taking a little more time to shake this teams' collective head up about FT's is something that must be done ASAP.   People who say it can't be done in season are just wrong.  What do coaches do if a particular offense or defense isn't working in a game????  THEY ADJUST.  They run something different.  THIS isn't working.  Whatever they are doing or not doing to correct the FT% is not working.  ADJUST YOUR GAME PLAN AND WAKE THESE GUYS UP.   

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1 hour ago, Spoonball18 said:

Here's the sad truth.  Blah, blah, blah....  ADJUST YOUR GAME PLAN AND WAKE THESE GUYS UP.   

Not gonna lie:  I didn't read much of that.  White space is your friend!  Long posts are okay, if they're well constructed; one long block of text doesn't fit the bill.

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Here's the sad truth.  THIS TOPIC IS NOT GOING TO GO AWAY SO PEOPLE NEED TO GET OVER IT AND ACCEPT THAT IT WILL BE A DISCUSSION.  We are not a average FT shooting team.  We are not just a bad FT shooting team, WE ARE THE WORST.  You can't get any worse than the worst.  This has cost us games.  This is going to cost us more games, and possibly a NCAA tournament bid.  We should have at least 2 more wins against teams that would clearly have us in the bracketology already.  This team has no margin for error when you can't make FT's to close out a game or keep building leads.  People want to focus on better FG%.  Great.  While we're at it lets work on rebounding, assist to turnover ratio, defense, etc.  All of that is wonderful.  Great plan.  Every aspect of the game can be worked on and you may get some improvement, but FT's are something that no matter what---they will be a huge part of the strategy used against us.  It may not get any better until after French and Goodwin graduate, but I can't believe that nearly 3 years into a 4 year career we are still having this trouble.  At some point someone has to sit these guys down and explain that they either try something different or that for as hard as they work and battle, they are hurting the teams chances to do something that will be over in the blink of an eye.  A 4 year career goes by fast.  There are only 4 chances to make a tournament.  Even if you move on to play pro, while you are in college you want to go to the tournament.  The NCAA doesn't hand out at-large bids like candy at Halloween.  I've heard some quotes from some of the guys that seem to accept or downplay the FT issue.  I understand they may not want to dwell on it, but at this point you need to make a point and drive it home.  Last night we were lucky to get the win.  Making a FT could have possibly kept us out of OT.  We may not get as lucky next time.  At this point in the season most anyone who will contribute to the team knows the plays.  Working on offense and other things is not to be ignored, but is it really going to make us any better than what we are?  Taking a little more time to shake this teams' collective head up about FT's is something that must be done ASAP.   People who say it can't be done in season are just wrong.  What do coaches do if a particular offense or defense isn't working in a game????  THEY ADJUST.  They run something different.  THIS isn't working.  Whatever they are doing or not doing to correct the FT% is not working.  ADJUST YOUR GAME PLAN AND WAKE THESE GUYS UP.   

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18 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

Not gonna lie:  I didn't read much of that.  White space is your friend!  Long posts are okay, if they're well constructed; one long block of text doesn't fit the bill.

I'm not too worried about setting up the body of the thought in paragraph style when it's a freaking topic about horrible free throw shooting.  If you prefer, you are more than welcome to read it, repost it with the correct paragraph style, and correct any grammatical errors so it is more pleasing to your eye.  This is 2020.  This is the day and age where kids and young adults need a safe space from mean words.  They don't know how to read or write in cursive, can't drive a manual transmission, don't know what a pay phone is, can't do math without a calculator, don't know how to spell without spellcheck, and can't dial a rotary dial phone.  This is my boycott.  Block text.

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Even if we shoot at a higher FG%, it is likely there will still be close games where if a team is down by 10 with a few minutes left they will begin to send us to the line to stop the clock while we miss attempt after attempt after attempt where they have a chance to chip away at the lead with the clock slowing down on the fouls.  Even if we shoot a better percentage, most close games still come down to free throws at the end.  

I'm sure it eats at these guys to continually miss.  I'm sure as competitors they may lay awake agonizing over some bad losses, but this is time to throw feelings out the window and speak the harsh truth.  You may be the best on the floor for 30 minutes, but if you're a liability at the line you may not see much action in the final minute or two at crunch time.  Travis knows tournament appearances means $$ to the University, Athletic Dept, and in his pocket.  There is plenty of rea$on$ to tear into some people.  

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