Free Throws

[Nebrasketball1979]

I watch every game and just shake my head at our consistently horrid free throw shooting.  While our talent is improved over last year and I believe we have the horses to compete on most nights, we continue to make our basketball lives far harder than it needs to by being just a horrible free throw shooting team.  Why is that?  Do we not practice enough at it?  Is it all mental?  Anytime Fred talks about it, he emphasizes that the kids are getting the work in and putting in extra work, so what gives?  Good or adequate free throw shooters transfer in and become worse at it here.  Is the Big 10 FT line at 14' 10" and this is some sort of inside joke that the BIG never informed Nebraska of?  I just don't get it.  I expected Teddy to be in the 85% - 90% range based on how he shot last year.  He's almost an automatic 1 out of 2 each trip.  And, he's not alone in the struggles.

 

Look at these examples

 

 

Dalano is the only one to show improvement and the rest have not just gotten worse but drastically worse.  We're 8 games in so perhaps this is too small of a sample size but man, this seems like an ongoing trend over the last few years.  I use to think it was a conditioning thing and guys didn't have the legs.  BUT, we don't discriminate when we miss free throws.  We miss at the beginning of games, at the end of games and basically at any juncture in a game when we go to the line.  When we do go to the free throw line, I'm mentally preparing myself for a 1 out of 2.  You know what Wisconsin did last night at the free throw line...15 for 15.  Us...9-17.  The difference between us and Wisconsin last night wasn't that great.  We pass the eye test talent wise most night.  I've concluded that the issue has be be mostly mental at this point and the difference between us and most teams appear to be between the eyeballs.  Make a few open threes and hit a representative amount of free throws and our competitive losses become wins.  Curious if anyone else has theories.

[Bugeaters1]

26 minutes ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

I watch every game and just shake my head at our consistently horrid free throw shooting.  While our talent is improved over last year and I believe we have the horses to compete on most nights, we continue to make our basketball lives far harder than it needs to by being just a horrible free throw shooting team.  Why is that?  Do we not practice enough at it?  Is it all mental?  Anytime Fred talks about it, he emphasizes that the kids are getting the work in and putting in extra work, so what gives?  Good or adequate free throw shooters transfer in and become worse at it here.  Is the Big 10 FT line at 14' 10" and this is some sort of inside joke that the BIG never informed Nebraska of?  I just don't get it.  I expected Teddy to be in the 85% - 90% range based on how he shot last year.  He's almost an automatic 1 out of 2 each trip.  And, he's not alone in the struggles.

 

Look at these examples

 

 

Dalano is the only one to show improvement and the rest have not just gotten worse but drastically worse.  We're 8 games in so perhaps this is too small of a sample size but man, this seems like an ongoing trend over the last few years.  I use to think it was a conditioning thing and guys didn't have the legs.  BUT, we don't discriminate when we miss free throws.  We miss at the beginning of games, at the end of games and basically at any juncture in a game when we go to the line.  When we do go to the free throw line, I'm mentally preparing myself for a 1 out of 2.  You know what Wisconsin did last night at the free throw line...15 for 15.  Us...9-17.  The difference between us and Wisconsin last night wasn't that great.  We pass the eye test talent wise most night.  I've concluded that the issue has be be mostly mental at this point and the difference between us and most teams appear to be between the eyeballs.  Make a few open threes and hit a representative amount of free throws and our competitive losses become wins.  Curious if anyone else has theories.

Maybe it's the arena's that they are shooting in.

 

[Nebrasketball1979]

13 minutes ago, Bugeaters1 said:

Maybe it's the arena's that they are shooting in.

 

 

I don't think that's it.  If my math is right, we've shot 22 for 39 on the road at Creighton/Wisconsin for a 56.4% clip and 100 for 149 at home for a 67.1% clip.  Both are awful!

[Bugeaters1]

1 minute ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

 

I don't think that's it.  If my math is right, we've shot 22 for 39 on the road at Creighton/Wisconsin for a 56.4% clip and 100 for 149 at home for a 67.1% clip.  Both are awful!

It's just an Idea, I don't think that is the problem either. It must just be part of the Husker jinx.

 

[Nebrasketball1979]

2 minutes ago, Bugeaters1 said:

4 minutes ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

 

I don't think that's it.  If my math is right, we've shot 22 for 39 on the road at Creighton/Wisconsin for a 56.4% clip and 100 for 149 at home for a 67.1% clip.  Both are awful!

It's just an Idea, I don't think that is the problem either. It must just be part of the Husker jinx.

 

Yeah, that's as good of an explanation as anything.  Here is last year's road vs. home stats:

 

Home - 223 out of 390 - 57.2%

Road - 129 out of 194 - 66.5%

 

Total - 352 out of 584 - 60.2%

 

We have just been inept and something we are doing is making our current year free throw shooters worse.  It's got to be mental or a jink or the basketball gods still haunting us for selling our soul to the devil in 2014.  Whatever it is, it's going to limit this team's ceiling, which may not be all that high in a tough Big 10 anyways.

[Chuck Taylor]

1. Everybody practices, that's not the problem. 2. Some of them just aren't good shooters, either because of poor depth perception or lack of coordination in their hands/wrists etc. 3. Physical and mental fatigue from the stress of having so little margin of error in what they do. That should subside as they become more comfortable playing in the system.

 

 

[hskr4life]

It’s the same reason we don’t make open threes and miss bunnies.  We think too much as shooters, and we lack confidence.  Winning builds confidence but confidence also is needed to win.  When you’re not doing either, it’s tough to break the snowball.

We lost a lot of confidence in that Nevada loss.

[hskr4life]

The Petteway run didn’t happen in the Big 10 because we were overly talented.  It happened because we were basically the opposite snowball of what we have now.  EVERYTHING went right, EVERYTHING went in.  
 

When Petteway or Pitchford shot, I was surprised when it didn’t go in.  Pitchford was basically automatic to make at least 1-2 threes before the U 16 of the first half.  Now, I’m surprised when we make it.  We just need to get that snowball rolling the opposite direction.

[BjoeHusker]

You know you're struggling at the line when your percentage is below Yvan's!

[Red Don]

21 hours ago, hskr4life said:

The Petteway run didn’t happen in the Big 10 because we were overly talented.  It happened because we were basically the opposite snowball of what we have now.  EVERYTHING went right, EVERYTHING went in.  
 

When Petteway or Pitchford shot, I was surprised when it didn’t go in.  Pitchford was basically automatic to make at least 1-2 threes before the U 16 of the first half.  Now, I’m surprised when we make it.  We just need to get that snowball rolling the opposite direction.

 

What I remember most from some of those games (in my hazy memory) is the Free Throws falling!   It seems like we just couldn't miss, especially Shavon.   And the drives to the rim, and all the AND Ones.   They WON a lot of games for us, especially in the season run to the Dance.

[REDitus]

Instead of shooting layups before the games to warm up maybe they should shoot FT's.  

[kldm64]

So it's a pretty bad look for Teddy, Lat, and Trey that Yvan has a higher free throw percentage than you do on the season.  Going to be hard to win games if that doesn't improve and soon!!!!

 

[hskr4life]

Maybe Yuv just needs to shoot FT line hook shots.  Ha!

[Nighthawk]

On 12/23/2020 at 3:05 PM, Bugeaters1 said:

Maybe it's the arena's that they are shooting in.

 

Ok so the solution would be to ask the NCAA permission to add up all our free throws and save them for a rainy day to shoot in some random location...like the local Y or maybe some HS gym. 

[hhcmatt]

Hoiberg constantly gets asked about this and almost always has the same things to say....they practice them, they run less if they make them, etc

[Handy Johnson]

It’s a mindset more than mechanics. If you like to score (and what player doesn’t) they’re literally FREE points...!

[Jacob Padilla]

9 hours ago, hskr4life said:

Maybe Yuv just needs to shoot FT line hook shots.  Ha!

 

May I ask why you call him that?

[HolyBobpilgrimage]

15 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

Hoiberg constantly gets asked about this and almost always has the same things to say....they practice them, they run less if they make them, etc

Yeah I have no qualms with how hoiberg runs practice with the FTs and suicides (running the court punishments). After all, he's historically one of the best shooters in the nba and at the line. So idk, only explanation is the husker jinx; maybe there's a series of cabals of witches out there constantly casting this curse on us.

 

Otherwise, getting better at free throws is very simple: nash's method: lots of volume of practice with good mechanics, playing little FT games to make it interesting, that's it. If you have good mechanics as a shooter you're probably a good shooter from the line.

It's more than the last few years, it's most of the nebraska basketball history where we've been abysmal. It's so frustrating. Maybe it's a lazy culture? Ffs iowa and creighton must have better discipline at the line. In reality I don't believe in curses, as much as I like to joke about it

[hskr4life]

8 hours ago, Jacob Padilla said:

 

May I ask why you call him that?

Yeah— No rhyme or reason.  I guess it’s my nickname for him.  When we first signed him, I thought he pronounced his name “you-Vaughn” and so I would always just type Yuv for short and the nickname kind of stuck for me.

[jimmykc]

Better than calling him Eve.