On the bright side...

[kicker22]

After last night's stellar 1-8 from the stripe, the free throw percentage should improve drastically. If not it can't get much worse.

Not often do I think I could I can outperform D1 athletes, but this time I'm pretty sure most of us on here could manage to go 1-8 from the stripe. WTF.

 

[Robowe]

 

[mopkins]

I was a TERRIBLE free throw shooter in high school and I still shot 60%. It completely blows my mind that athletes getting free tuition for shooting a basketball can't do better than I could in high school.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

Also a bit disconcerting only getting to the line for 8 total shots.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

I was a pretty good free throw shooter. I think I shot like 80% in jr high and was 88% in HS and didn't play beyond that. It's never been comprehensible to me that D1 players and pros can't hit 75-80% of them. I mean if your missing them in practice a lot then your practicing it wrong... Change up your form. If your form is flawed and unrepeatable find what works for you but don't keep the same terrible style of stroke going and expect to improve. It doesn't work that way. Shooting to me was a muscle memory thing. I can go a long time without touching a ball I've gone years before but when I do I can still hit 15 footers pretty well. Especially once I've warmed up about 10 shots or so. For these guys that shoot a ton more then I do/did to not be able to do as well or better then me just blows my mind because I was mad whenever I missed one. I wanted to shoot like Mark Price and practically never miss but I couldn't get that good. But I feel maybe I could have if I put the time in... Oh well that's my reminiscing of back to the early 90s haha

 

[Robowe]

I was a pretty good free throw shooter. I think I shot like 80% in jr high and was 88% in HS and didn't play beyond that. It's never been comprehensible to me that D1 players and pros can't hit 75-80% of them. I mean if your missing them in practice a lot then your practicing it wrong... Change up your form. If your form is flawed and unrepeatable find what works for you but don't keep the same terrible style of stroke going and expect to improve. It doesn't work that way. Shooting to me was a muscle memory thing. I can go a long time without touching a ball I've gone years before but when I do I can still hit 15 footers pretty well. Especially once I've warmed up about 10 shots or so. For these guys that shoot a ton more then I do/did to not be able to do as well or better then me just blows my mind because I was mad whenever I missed one. I wanted to shoot like Mark Price and practically never miss but I couldn't get that good. But I feel maybe I could have if I put the time in... Oh well that's my reminiscing of back to the early 90s haha

Another article about FT shooting from 2014

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...316_1_charity-stripe-free-throw-march-madness

Palubinskas and Boren argue the pressure shouldn't matter.

"The ball doesn't care what the hell happens, what kind of status or emotion you're in," Palubinskas said. "It only cares about the physical energy to put the ball on its path. The ball doesn't lie; it goes exactly where you tell it to go."

Most players and coaches disagree. They would say pressure is what makes the free throw so difficult to perfect.

"There are guys who travel the country, who are great free-throw shooters and give clinics, men and women, but it's not a game," Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. "It's not 17,000 people in the arena either giving positive vibes or negative vibes. It's under pressure; it's when you're tired. And over the course of the year people have different injuries. Things aren't always the same when it comes to free throws."

 

[revkev73]

Rebuilding year at the line...

 

[tksirius]

You guys are overreacting. 1 for 8 is a good base to build a foundation on for the next 2 years.

 

[1hawkeye1]

I was a pretty good free throw shooter. I think I shot like 80% in jr high and was 88% in HS and didn't play beyond that. It's never been comprehensible to me that D1 players and pros can't hit 75-80% of them. I mean if your missing them in practice a lot then your practicing it wrong... Change up your form. If your form is flawed and unrepeatable find what works for you but don't keep the same terrible style of stroke going and expect to improve. It doesn't work that way. Shooting to me was a muscle memory thing. I can go a long time without touching a ball I've gone years before but when I do I can still hit 15 footers pretty well. Especially once I've warmed up about 10 shots or so. For these guys that shoot a ton more then I do/did to not be able to do as well or better then me just blows my mind because I was mad whenever I missed one. I wanted to shoot like Mark Price and practically never miss but I couldn't get that good. But I feel maybe I could have if I put the time in... Oh well that's my reminiscing of back to the early 90s haha

When I coached HS bb, my teams always led the league or were top 3 in FT%. Muscle memory is key. We always practiced FT's at the end of practice, when you were the most tired. We used visualization a lot. Some times we'd stop practice for a minute and I'd tell each kid to visualize shooting 2 FT's in a game. visualize making both, nothing but net.
When you go to bed,visualize yourself shooting FT's again. Every one is perfect. Nothing but net. Put kids in pressure situations. With FT's on the line. Pick somebody to shoot a one-and-one. If they miss one, everybody but them runs.
I just cannot believe how atrocious Iowa is at FT's. They should be embarrassed.

 

[1hawkeye1]

This thread is titled "on the bright side" so I'll give you one.

Iowa outrebounded isu.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

Another article about FT shooting from 2014

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...316_1_charity-stripe-free-throw-march-madness

Palubinskas and Boren argue the pressure shouldn't matter.

"The ball doesn't care what the hell happens, what kind of status or emotion you're in," Palubinskas said. "It only cares about the physical energy to put the ball on its path. The ball doesn't lie; it goes exactly where you tell it to go."

Most players and coaches disagree. They would say pressure is what makes the free throw so difficult to perfect.

"There are guys who travel the country, who are great free-throw shooters and give clinics, men and women, but it's not a game," Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. "It's not 17,000 people in the arena either giving positive vibes or negative vibes. It's under pressure; it's when you're tired. And over the course of the year people have different injuries. Things aren't always the same when it comes to free throws."

I would argue that being tired can affect you some. But you practice that. A lot. Once you've played ball and shot as many of them as they have (or should have in practice) It's muscle memory. If your thinking about it at all be it the situation or your mechanics at the line your toast. D1 college guys play more ball then I did I'm sure. When I was a kid I spent many nights and all day on Saturdays when I went in the house I couldn't hardly walk. But I could still shoot free throws better then some of the pitiful numbers you can often see now. It just blows my mind that kids don't think about how important that they are in regards to winning and losing games. How many more games could any program win if they raised their % just 5-10 percent more as a group? When your talking about close games it's the easiest difference maker you can control to improve on

 

[Hawkfnntn]

When I coached HS bb, my teams always led the league or were top 3 in FT%. Muscle memory is key. We always practiced FT's at the end of practice, when you were the most tired. We used visualization a lot. Some times we'd stop practice for a minute and I'd tell each kid to visualize shooting 2 FT's in a game. visualize making both, nothing but net.
When you go to bed,visualize yourself shooting FT's again. Every one is perfect. Nothing but net. Put kids in pressure situations. With FT's on the line. Pick somebody to shoot a one-and-one. If they miss one, everybody but them runs.
I just cannot believe how atrocious Iowa is at FT's. They should be embarrassed.

As a coach that's about all you can do too. What separates the good from the great are those that work on it alone outside of the team practices. Maybe programs/coaches put a ton of emphasis on them and maybe Fran does I've never been around program to know. But players have to take it upon themselves to find what works for them and practice it forever. How a kid like that Ball kid on the Lakers got to the level he is shooting that way is crazy to me. He'll never 'perfect' that into being a consistent stroke. I'll be shocked if he can shoot 80% like that from the line. You have to have a repeatable stroke where the instant it leaves your finger you know if it's in or not. Otherwise your just chucking it

 

[PCHawk]

Making a shot from that far away is a skill. Not everyone that is good at basketball has that skill. Maybe they have to practice all the time just to shoot 50%. As long as they can do other parts of the game well enough to justify their weaknesses, they are worth having out there. And who cares if someone on the internet can do one part of the game better than someone else? That's like saying you can bench more than a football player and if you can bench that much, there is no reason they shouldn't be able to.

 

[PCHawk]

I guess another way to say it is every player has their own natural ability to shoot free throws and practice can only improve your ability so much. If your natural ability is to shoot 30%, there isn't enough practice in the world to turn you into a 90% shooter. If your natural ability is to shoot 80%, you can be a 90% shooter if you practice it.

It's just so easy to rip on players for free throws because everyone can make them to some extent. All the other things they do on the court is something the average Joe can't do, so they pick the one thing they can do and rip on players for not doing it perfect.

 

[PCHawk]

Also our team percentage sucks because our guards don't have the ability to get to the line like most other teams. Other than Wagner, and Garza at this point, our bigs probably shoot comparable to most other teams, but they have guards making free throws to help their average. We don't. Everyone who understands anything about basketball knows that shorter players make free throws better than taller players. They can put the ball up softer.

 

[mopkins]

I guess another way to say it is every player has their own natural ability to shoot free throws and practice can only improve your ability so much. If your natural ability is to shoot 30%, there isn't enough practice in the world to turn you into a 90% shooter. If your natural ability is to shoot 80%, you can be a 90% shooter if you practice it.

It's just so easy to rip on players for free throws because everyone can make them to some extent. All the other things they do on the court is something the average Joe can't do, so they pick the one thing they can do and rip on players for not doing it perfect.

I think its the fact that everyone over the age of 10 can make them means that players who shoot ~200 free throws a day in practice should hit them at a higher rate than 1 for 8.

 

[PCHawk]

I think its the fact that everyone over the age of 10 can make them means that players who shoot ~200 free throws a day in practice should hit them at a higher rate than 1 for 8.

Everyone does hit them higher than a rate of 1 for 8.

 

[kicker22]

Also our team percentage sucks because our guards don't have the ability to get to the line like most other teams. Other than Wagner, and Garza at this point, our bigs probably shoot comparable to most other teams, but they have guards making free throws to help their average. We don't. Everyone who understands anything about basketball knows that shorter players make free throws better than taller players. They can put the ball up softer.

I think I see your point, but last night wasn't comparable to other teams shooting. Last night was the definition of piss poor shooting from the stripe. We're not talking making 50-70%, which I still consider poor, we're talking about 12.5%.

 

[kicker22]

Also a bit disconcerting only getting to the line for 8 total shots.

The way we shot that might have been a blessing. Way to many empty possessions to come away with. Could you imagine what the score would have been with us going say 3 of 24 (sticking to 12.5%) on top of all the turnovers.

 

[PCHawk]

I think I see your point, but last night wasn't comparable to other teams shooting. Last night was the definition of piss poor shooting from the stripe. We're not talking making 50-70%, which I still consider poor, we're talking about 12.5%.

But that's not our season average. It was one game. It was a ridiculously low percentage but it was also a small sample size. Also I don't think any player missed more than 2. It was a bunch of 0-1s and 0-2s. More random than anything.