FREE throws

[mufan924]

i wonder if crean will get it through his skull that marquette needs to devote a few hours a day to practicing FREE THROWS?!?

[🏀]

Do you honestly think they don't spend time on free throws?

[muwarrior87]

its a streaky team. some games they shoot 90%, others they shoot 60%. they weren't falling yesterday early and that's what killed. second half we shot a pretty high percentage from the line. I think we missed the first 5 or 6 of the game though.

[mufan924]

they obviously dont spend enough time on FTs. maybe they practice deflections, they really like that statistic.

[mu_hilltopper]

Actually .. MU is 4th best in FT% in the BE.  (prior to Saturday's games.)

[drewm88]

Per Rosiak's blog, yesterday's 61% was the 2nd worst of the season, and worst in a month.

I would take our FT shooting this season any day. Nothing wrong with 4th in the BE. Not everyone can be a Novak or a Reddick

[MUCam]

I am curious as to how many minutes per day are devoted to FT practice. Perhaps mufan924 can tell me since he obviously seems to know.

[LovinCrowder]

Per Rosiak's blog, yesterday's 61% was the 2nd worst of the season, and worst in a month.

I would take our FT shooting this season any day. Nothing wrong with 4th in the BE. Not everyone can be a Novak or a Reddick

Are you serious???  There is no excuse for missing free throws.   If they would have made their FTs, the outcome of this game would have been different.

[mufan924]

not enough minutes obviously mucam. we should not feel fortunate when a player makes a pair. thats how it felt the entire game. i dont care if they are 4th best in the big east, the FT's are why we lost. that georgetown team baffles me by how they are atop the big east, but they manage to win all of their close games. they shot 21-28, MU shot 22-36. i think we can all do the math there.

[Big Papi]

Per Rosiak's blog, yesterday's 61% was the 2nd worst of the season, and worst in a month.

I would take our FT shooting this season any day. Nothing wrong with 4th in the BE. Not everyone can be a Novak or a Reddick

Are you serious???  There is no excuse for missing free throws.   If they would have made their FTs, the outcome of this game would have been different.

Are you serious?  How about the Rivers prayer from 3, the missed bunnies by McNeal, Mbakwe and Burke.  The foul by DJ that resulted in 3 free throws twice during that game.  The banked in 3.  etc. etc.  And yes free throws missed which when you look at percentage wise, we really only missed 3 more than we normally do but that is besides the point.  This game was not decided by one thing. 

You know TC and the team never wins.  FIrst they practice too much.  Now they don't practice their free throws enough.  Its easy to sit on a fence and just bash away when that is your main objective.

[wheresthecake?]

A big part of shooting free throws is the mental aspect.  This is not a mentally strong team, as evidenced by our inability to put teams away, so once this team sees one or two guys struggle at the line they all think it is their responsibility to turn it around.  Unfortunately this forces them to put way too much pressure on themselves and they overthink such a basic part of basketball.  Anyone who plays golf knows this is the same way for 3 foot putts, once you miss one it sticks in your head and you start to miss more and more.  Only the mentally tough are able to overcome this, unfortunately the team is not there yet.

[MUCam]

not enough minutes obviously mucam. we should not feel fortunate when a player makes a pair. thats how it felt the entire game. i dont care if they are 4th best in the big east, the FT's are why we lost. that georgetown team baffles me by how they are atop the big east, but they manage to win all of their close games. they shot 21-28, MU shot 22-36. i think we can all do the math there.

Again mufan924, maybe you can tell me exactly how many minutes the team spends per day. And please don't give me this "not enough" speculative BS. I'd appreciate a concrete number. Either that, or perhaps you can admit that you don't know how many seconds/minutes/hours per day are spend on FTs.

I'll agree: Missed FTs killed us this past game. I am sure Crean would agree with that too. But, don't make this about how many minutes we spend on practice, unless you have ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE of how much time was spent on FTs. As someone who has spent numerous hours on the golf course and at the driving range, I can assure you, doing something when it counts consistently and simply practicing it are two very different things. You should care that we are 4th in the Big East, because it shows a trend, rather than one random night. Can the FT shooting get better? Sure. Was it bad because we don't practice enough? You and I have no idea. Making uninformed remarks like the one you made simply make you sound silly.

For the record, earlier this year during a Memphis game, I remember a color commentator mention how Calipari can't seem to understand why they [Memphis] shoot the ball so poorly from the charity stripe, DESPITE what he called the most intense FT shooting practices he has ever had a team undertake. Sometimes you just don't shoot well from the stipe. End of story.

[ChicosBailBonds]

A big part of shooting free throws is the mental aspect.  This is not a mentally strong team, as evidenced by our inability to put teams away, so once this team sees one or two guys struggle at the line they all think it is their responsibility to turn it around.  Unfortunately this forces them to put way too much pressure on themselves and they overthink such a basic part of basketball.  Anyone who plays golf knows this is the same way for 3 foot putts, once you miss one it sticks in your head and you start to miss more and more.  Only the mentally tough are able to overcome this, unfortunately the team is not there yet.

I'll ask again, can you show me the huge body of evidence of games this year where we didn't put teams away.  I just don't get it.

We sealed the deal at Wisconsin, one of the toughest places to play and closed it out.  Our losses to UL and UCONN we were never in it so nothing to close out.  Same with WVU.  That leaves just two other losses...Duke and G' Town.  Every other game we have "closed out".

I just don't get where this theory of we don't close teams out....exactly what "evidence" are you talking about from this season?  The Villanova game where we were trailing in their gym in the second half and then CLOSED THEM OUT?    What evidence?

[romey]

Chicos - for the sake of argument here - playing devil's advocate.  I don't know exactly what games, but I DO feel sometimes, even in wins, that we don't put teams away early enough. - You know what I mean?  Like, we're up by double digits maybe early in the second half and we've got momentum, but then we let teams back in.  So maybe it's not so much we don't "put teams away," but that we keep them in games longer than we should - even when we do win.  It's just a feeling I seem to get often when watching them.  Hope that makes sense.

[drewm88]

Chicos - for the sake of argument here - playing devil's advocate.  I don't know exactly what games, but I DO feel sometimes, even in wins, that we don't put teams away early enough. - You know what I mean?  Like, we're up by double digits maybe early in the second half and we've got momentum, but then we let teams back in.  So maybe it's not so much we don't "put teams away," but that we keep them in games longer than we should - even when we do win.  It's just a feeling I seem to get often when watching them.  Hope that makes sense.

I feel that applies more to last year's team. Other than St. John's, I don't think this team has failed to go in for the kill once we get a solid lead. GT- nobody should count an 11 point lead with 11 minutes remaining as a solid lead against those guys. I see the point, and I know you're just playing devil's advocate, but I've been happy with our performance in that regard this year.

[drewm88]

Per Rosiak's blog, yesterday's 61% was the 2nd worst of the season, and worst in a month.

I would take our FT shooting this season any day. Nothing wrong with 4th in the BE. Not everyone can be a Novak or a Reddick

Are you serious???  There is no excuse for missing free throws.   If they would have made their FTs, the outcome of this game would have been different.

How about you make 36 consecutive free throws? Then we'll talk. And by talk, I mean add in the pressure of playing in front of 19,000 people plus a national tv audience, the pressure of playing the #10 team in the country as you fight for a better BE and NCAA seed, mental and physical fatigue, and maybe even a bum wrist too.

It sounds difficult to me, but hey, there is no excuse for missing free throws.

[Big Papi]

Chicos - for the sake of argument here - playing devil's advocate.  I don't know exactly what games, but I DO feel sometimes, even in wins, that we don't put teams away early enough. - You know what I mean?  Like, we're up by double digits maybe early in the second half and we've got momentum, but then we let teams back in.  So maybe it's not so much we don't "put teams away," but that we keep them in games longer than we should - even when we do win.  It's just a feeling I seem to get often when watching them.  Hope that makes sense.

I think there were only 2 games (Depaul and St. Johns)  this year where we squandered away some of our big lead and that was due to sloppy play at the tail end of the game and neither game did I feel our win was threatened.  Now look at the games where we kept the throttle down: Oklahoma St. (+30) UWM (+35) Providence (+29), ND (+26), Seton Hall (+25), Rutgers (+30).  You can even add Pitt (+18) to the list even though we gave away about 10 points really late in the game but that was when we had Trend, Hazel, Scott and others in the game for extended minutes.
Thats 7 wins of 18 plus against some decent competition not your low level mid majors.  (Oh by the way, I only put UWM in the list because their fans seem to think their program is on par with ours.)

I just don't recall a MU that has blown out so many teams as we have this year and that includs the Final Four year.   So the thought that we don't put teams away this year is way off the mark.

[Henry Sugar]

Chicos - for the sake of argument here - playing devil's advocate.  I don't know exactly what games, but I DO feel sometimes, even in wins, that we don't put teams away early enough. - You know what I mean?  Like, we're up by double digits maybe early in the second half and we've got momentum, but then we let teams back in.  So maybe it's not so much we don't "put teams away," but that we keep them in games longer than we should - even when we do win.  It's just a feeling I seem to get often when watching them.  Hope that makes sense.

I feel that applies more to last year's team. Other than St. John's, I don't think this team has failed to go in for the kill once we get a solid lead. GT- nobody should count an 11 point lead with 11 minutes remaining as a solid lead against those guys. I see the point, and I know you're just playing devil's advocate, but I've been happy with our performance in that regard this year.

co-sign

[NavinRJohnson]

I will say that I pointed this out, and saw this coming after games we won, at times comfortably. We have been inconsistent at the line, and when you are playing against teams that aren't as good as Georgetown, you can get away with it. Not so on Saturday, obviously.

As far as that game goes, yes there were a lot of things that led to the loss, but I honestly believe had we made even half of those that we missed in the first half, we are able to pull away, game is never really close, and those other factors never come into play. Those missed FT's put MU in a position where those other things mattered. 

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

I will say that I pointed this out, and saw this coming after games we won, at time comfartably. We have been inconsistent at the line, and when you are playing against teams that aren't as good as Georgetown, you can get away with it. Not so on Saturday, obviously.

As far as that game goes, yes there were a lot of things that led to the loss, but I honestly believe had we made even half of those that we missed in the first half, we are able to pull away, game is never really close, and those other factors never come into play. Those missed FT's put MU in a position where those other things mattered. 

Yea, I agree.

Basketball is a holistic sport. We all love to look at statistics and break stuff down to minor things... but realistically there were a lot of things in the game that could have changed the outcome.

Offensive rebounding, overall shooting, free-throws, a could of questionable calls (both ways), etc. etc.

MU seemed to execute pretty well, but couldn't get some key (open) shots to go down. If they make a couple more when they were up big, they might have blown Georgetown's doors off... but give GT credit, they survived MU's runs and executed throughout the entire game.

A heart-breaking loss for certain... but entirely entertaining and very interesting from a basketball entertainment and strategy perspective.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Chicos - for the sake of argument here - playing devil's advocate.  I don't know exactly what games, but I DO feel sometimes, even in wins, that we don't put teams away early enough. - You know what I mean?  Like, we're up by double digits maybe early in the second half and we've got momentum, but then we let teams back in.  So maybe it's not so much we don't "put teams away," but that we keep them in games longer than we should - even when we do win.  It's just a feeling I seem to get often when watching them.  Hope that makes sense.

I guess I just don't see it.  We have literally smashed some teams this year and put them away early.  I just don't recall a game where we had a nice lead, say 10 points and failed to deliver the knockout blow other than G'Town....at least not this year.

[TallTitan34]

3 Things:

1)  You really think they don't practice free throws?

2)  Practicing free throws at an empty AL or BC is a little different than in front of 19,000 fans in an actual game.

3)  Shaq spends a lot of time practicing free throws.  How does that turn out for him? 

[WashDCWarrior]

Current Big East Free Throw Percentages (includes Georgetown game)

## Team                  G    FTM   FTA   Pct
---------------------------------------------
1.Notre Dame.......... 28    459   621  .739
2.Seton Hall.......... 29    489   676  .723
3.Villanova........... 28    431   602  .716
4.Connecticut......... 29    574   806  .712
5.Marquette........... 28    437   619  .706
6.West Virginia....... 30    429   632  .679
7.Pittsburgh.......... 30    393   579  .679
8.Providence.......... 28    363   538  .675
9.St. John's.......... 28    366   545  .672
10.Syracuse............ 29    485   723  .671
11.Cincinnati.......... 28    351   525  .669
12.Georgetown.......... 28    353   528  .669
13.Louisville.......... 30    408   619  .659
14.DePaul.............. 28    343   529  .648
15.Rutgers............. 30    372   575  .647
16.USF................. 29    440   690  .638


I fully agree that if we made 28 instead of 22 of our 36 FTs, we would have beaten Georgetown.  Overall though, we've been a solid FT shooting team this year, and I think changing around practice routines, or getting the players to dwell on how our FT shooting "cost us the game" would have the opposite of the desired effect.  More likely, our players would get more tense, and shoot a lower percentage.  Have faith that this was a singular bad performance.

Besides, we can spend the extra practice time putting in a couple plays for end-of-game situations.

[BrewCity83]

If we had hit our average against GT, which is .706, we would have only hit 26 of 36 rather than 23 of 36.  Enough to have won the game, but it's not like we missed a huge amount below our average.

[WashDCWarrior]

Exactly.  I guess that's why it's called our average.  Some times we're better, some times we're worse.