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Post by RB Aztec on Jan 25, 2015 9:10:31 GMT -8
Poor free throw shooting has finally caught up to the program. AQ and JJ could have put us ahead to make it a different game. We have seen it the last two year in big game when we need a critical free throw to go in, we just cant make them. Free throws have cause us to lose games against AZ, Cin, FSU, and CSU this season. Im not saying we would have won all four put we could have at least two of those games. We need to be in the 70% range as a team if we are ever going to play in the final four. 9-17 52% SDSU 17-22 77.3% CSU Totally agree. Missing so many free throws is why we are losing games and having other games that are much closer than they should be. If we shot 70-75% from the FT line, we would still be top 25, IMHO. Free throws are definitely impacting our seeding in the NCAA tournament, or worse, impacting if we get selected. |
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Post by bobcooper84 on Jan 25, 2015 9:34:44 GMT -8
Thought our bigs played lousy. Loved the effort from the guys that finished the game. We just ran out of gas. JJ must find a way to make 1 of his 2 free throws down the stretch. After missing the first attempt, his 2nd barely hit rim. The air went out of the Aztecs after an excellent comeback but futile 2nd free throw attempt. If he's the leader, should he be held to a higher standard?
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Post by wonderful66 on Jan 25, 2015 10:35:52 GMT -8
My question is regarding Skylar; has there been any attempt to improve his free throw shooting over the last 3 years? I seen no difference in the way he shoots free throws and certainly no difference in the results. In fact, he may be regressing. Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is the definition of something.
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Post by aztecdan8 on Jan 25, 2015 11:10:39 GMT -8
I live in the Bay Area and have friends whose daughters play on a couple of the perennially top ranked HS teams up here. Most of the girls on these teams shoot better than most of our guys do. As a team they shoot better, and several girls on each shoot 75-80+%. we have no one on our team that shoots FTs as well as many of these HS girls I see play.
Think about it... High school girls shooting better from the line than 3 & 4 star college players. The only argument in the favor of our guys is their FTs in actuality are shot under more pressure, but even that point fails as most of the HS girls would feel as much pressure in their game situations as our guys would feel in theirs.
You get better shooting FTs only by practicing them every day over months and years. Every team practices them during every practice, usually at the end, but given NCAA practice time restrictions, it is not enough to make a difference. To really be good, you have to be dedicated to go do it on your own- maybe you grab a buddy or teammate to retrieve and return the ball. Clearly, most of our guys have not dedicated themselves to being proficient, or, heck, even improving. it's tremendous frustrating to see the poor FT shooting so often, and costing us games in the process.
The majority of our guys are train wrecks from the line. You can argue that FTs have cost us 4 games already this season. Yeah, in every game there are other factors, but if were just decent, which I'd say is 70+%, and consistently so, we'd easily have 2 more wins, if we we're 75+%, UW would be our only loss.
Seems an issue for the Aztecs and a lot of D1 programs. Guys don't dedicate themselves to this critical part of the game. But you know what, I don't care about other D1 one guys, I care about ours. And ours clearly have not dedicated themselves to FT shooting, and it costs us games because overall we are not good enough to overcome this deficiency, especially when the opponent IS good and even worse when they are also good shooting from the line.
Be honest, don't you all cringe when most of our guys get fouled and go to the line? On most good teams, you are glad to be shooting FTs. I was glad when it was X last season. This season, I cringe. It shouldn't be a coin flip going to the line, but that's what we have.
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Post by aztecdan8 on Jan 25, 2015 11:24:05 GMT -8
My question is regarding Skylar; has there been any attempt to improve his free throw shooting over the last 3 years? I seen no difference in the way he shoots free throws and certainly no difference in the results. In fact, he may be regressing. Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is the definition of something. The story on this that's been told during several TV broadcasts this season is the staff was planning re-tooling his FT form over the summer, but then he started making a higher percentage, so rather than risking messing with him mentally and chancing making it worse, they left him to this form and told him to go shoot thousands of them over the summer. Clearly, in hindsight, that was a dumb mistake. With his form and inconsistent spin/rotation, the lack of smoothness, the herky jerk aspect, etc., I could go on ... his bad form would not ever work. And we've seen this all season. Duh. His FT shooting form is the equivalent of Charles Barkley's golf swing. |
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Post by legkick on Jan 25, 2015 11:45:02 GMT -8
They shoot 75% last night and they lose by 3 instead of 6.
One can't assume that they would make any additional shots or that CSU would miss theirs; Avila was unconscious last night, the nail in the coffin shot was heavily guarded by both O'Brien and Pope. One can certainly assert that the dynamics would have changed, but one has no factual basis for doing so. It's simply confirmation bias supporting an argument that free throws matter more than they actually do.
The fundamental problem with free throw arguments is that it is an easy target for people who think they know something about the game. Everyone thinks that they can make more and that they've seen so-and-so's girls team or their own rec league team make more free throws.
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Post by AztecWilliam on Jan 25, 2015 12:33:51 GMT -8
I am honestly surprised to read that there is any difference of opinion regarding the Aztec free throw question. SDSU is the worst in the MWC in this category and our really bad FT percentage has undoubtedly cost us two or more games this season. Seems to me, as someone posted, that this problem is not unique to this year's team.
Free throws must be the one area in which serious criticism of Steve Fisher's coaching can be raised. I just don't get it. Yes, one or two regulars on most teams probably are not good at the line. But basically the whole team? I'm getting tired of this. Especailly when the team is generally way above average.
AzWm
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Post by AztecWilliam on Jan 25, 2015 12:40:04 GMT -8
They shoot 75% last night and they lose by 3 instead of 6. One can't assume that they would make any additional shots or that CSU would miss theirs; Avila was unconscious last night, the nail in the coffin shot was heavily guarded by both O'Brien and Pope. One can certainly assert that the dynamics would have changed, but one has no factual basis for doing so. It's simply confirmation bias supporting an argument that free throws matter more than they actually do. The fundamental problem with free throw arguments is that it is an easy target for people who think they know something about the game. Everyone thinks that they can make more and that they've seen so-and-so's girls team or their own rec league team make more free throws. I am just astounded that you would say this. There is a reason why they call them "free" throws. Short distance from the basket, nobody guarding the shooter. You HAVE to make a decent percentage of those shorts, especially in a close game. We are bad, and that has hurt the team. Is there some God-given edict that says Aztec mens basketball players are not allowed to shoot over about 62% of their free throws? This has to change. AzWm PS: One does not have to be an all-star to realize that making free throws is important. In fact, one just has to watch a few games. Goodness, this is not rocket science. |
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Post by northcountymike on Jan 25, 2015 12:59:44 GMT -8
Free throw shooting was a factor, but not the factor. You must look at the game holistically. When you do, you have to at least consider that the very poor defense, particularly on Avila, was the primary factor for the loss, at least from a negative perspective. You could alternatively give credit to CSU for shooting lights out on threes to start, including ones that were reasonably guarded. State scored 73 points; that wins every game they've played this year (in regulation, they had 67 at end of BYU reg), except last night. I think I mentioned this in another thread, but yes, we all know that CSU shot the lights out (especially in the first half). Sometimes, there generally isn't anything a team can do when this happens. However, we pulled within one point in the second half after CSU had displayed that great shooting. What happened after that? We didn't make our free throws down the stretch, and we couldn't rebound our misses. If we make these freebies, especially the first of two, we get a second chance. We also don't have to rebound the misses, and we can set up our defense. I don't know why so many people either don't see this or refuse to. |
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Post by aztech on Jan 25, 2015 13:59:10 GMT -8
Poor free throw shooting has finally caught up to the program. AQ and JJ could have put us ahead to make it a different game. We have seen it the last two year in big game when we need a critical free throw to go in, we just cant make them. Free throws have cause us to lose games against AZ, Cin, FSU, and CSU this season. Im not saying we would have won all four put we could have at least two of those games. We need to be in the 70% range as a team if we are ever going to play in the final four. 9-17 52% SDSU 17-22 77.3% CSU 52% at the line for a player is poor. For a whole team, that is just pathetic. O'Brien has never been a good FT shooter, Shepard's FT percentage is going south and we know Spencer's issues. When the wrong guys are at the FT line their misses feel like the team can't dig itself out of a hole or can't put the opponents away. I have to agree with some folks that this is one issue Fisher just has to address instead of simply saying they'd lose confidence if he got on them about it. WTF? It's plagued us over the years and we're still the worst in conference. Fix it. |
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Post by wonderful66 on Jan 25, 2015 14:07:44 GMT -8
My question is regarding Skylar; has there been any attempt to improve his free throw shooting over the last 3 years? I seen no difference in the way he shoots free throws and certainly no difference in the results. In fact, he may be regressing. Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is the definition of something. The story on this that's been told during several TV broadcasts this season is the staff was planning re-tooling his FT form over the summer, but then he started making a higher percentage, so rather than risking messing with him mentally and chancing making it worse, they left him to this form and told him to go shoot thousands of them over the summer. Clearly, in hindsight, that was a dumb mistake. With his form and inconsistent spin/rotation, the lack of smoothness, the herky jerk aspect, etc., I could go on ... his bad form would not ever work. And we've seen this all season. Duh. His FT shooting form is the equivalent of Charles Barkley's golf swing. Then I believe it is time to change Skylar's form right now. I would even suggest that he try the underhanded method. I doubt is percentage could be worse and it should improve. I remember a 7 foot Hall of Famer who was a lousy free thrower who, at least, tried to improve by using the underhand method. He never got to be a good free thrower, but he did make some. For those of you who are young, his name was Wilt Chamberlain. Rick Barry also enjoyed some success by shooting underhanded. |
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Post by csfoster on Jan 25, 2015 14:10:27 GMT -8
Free throws need to be made in close games, and we lost another one due to our inept peformance at the charity strip. It's mind boggeling how many of our guys are just flat out terrible FT shooters. And yet we have not lost leading with 5 minutes to go in 130+ games. |
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Post by aztech on Jan 25, 2015 14:19:43 GMT -8
The story on this that's been told during several TV broadcasts this season is the staff was planning re-tooling his FT form over the summer, but then he started making a higher percentage, so rather than risking messing with him mentally and chancing making it worse, they left him to this form and told him to go shoot thousands of them over the summer. Clearly, in hindsight, that was a dumb mistake. With his form and inconsistent spin/rotation, the lack of smoothness, the herky jerk aspect, etc., I could go on ... his bad form would not ever work. And we've seen this all season. Duh. His FT shooting form is the equivalent of Charles Barkley's golf swing. Then I believe it is time to change Skylar's form right now. I would even suggest that he try the underhanded method. I doubt is percentage could be worse and it should improve. I remember a 7 foot Hall of Famer who was a lousy free thrower who, at least, tried to improve by using the underhand method. He never got to be a good free thrower, but he did make some. For those of you who are young, his name was Wilt Chamberlain. Rick Barry also enjoyed some success by shooting underhanded. The truly big men get a pass, they aren't expected to be good FT shooters. They have more important responsibilities in their game. So when Spencer makes two of two FTs that should be considered a bonus, not an expectation. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2015 15:16:10 GMT -8
I'm not sure but think that our ft shooting always gets better as the season goes along. Will always remember what Brandon did to unlv one year with ft.
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Post by docmm on Jan 25, 2015 17:03:46 GMT -8
[/quote]O'Brien has never been a good FT shooter, Shepard's FT percentage is going south and we know Spencer's issues. When the wrong guys are at the FT line their misses feel like the team can't dig itself out of a hole or can't put the opponents away. I have to agree with some folks that this is one issue Fisher just has to address instead of simply saying they'd lose confidence if he got on them about it. WTF? It's plagued us over the years and we're still the worst in conference. Fix it.
[/quote]
Totally agree. Have heard Fish say on a couple occasions that getting on players about their free-throw shooting can only make it a bigger issue in their heads. OK, I see his point but come on, after this much time has passed and we're STILL this bad maybe it's time to not worry about their fragile egos and try a different tactic.
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Post by aztecmojo on Jan 25, 2015 19:23:54 GMT -8
THe game is 40 minutes long, and there are 100's of plays in a game, so missing FT at the end is not why we lost. We lost because they shot the lights out early in the 1st half. I'm sorry, but I think this is complete bull$#!+. How many times are we going to "defend" a s#!++y performance at the line? Night after night, it never gets any better. Yup, the game is 40 minutes long but we got within one point after CSU "shot the lights out" in the first half. Missing free throws also doesn't allow us to set up our full-court press which can be very effective. Sure, CSU shot well, but missing our free throws hurts and are a big part of the "100's of plays in a game." They are just as important as a turnover, foul, etc. Stop giving our free throw shooting a pass. Maybe [perfect form] NC Mike would like to donate some of his time and help some of these Aztec's with their free throw shooting. While you are at it Mikey, give Rajon Rondo-Dwight Howard and so many other MILLION dollar players a few helpful hints. |
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Post by RB Aztec on Jan 25, 2015 19:37:38 GMT -8
Then I believe it is time to change Skylar's form right now. I would even suggest that he try the underhanded method. I doubt is percentage could be worse and it should improve. I remember a 7 foot Hall of Famer who was a lousy free thrower who, at least, tried to improve by using the underhand method. He never got to be a good free thrower, but he did make some. For those of you who are young, his name was Wilt Chamberlain. Rick Barry also enjoyed some success by shooting underhanded. The truly big men get a pass, they aren't expected to be good FT shooters. They have more important responsibilities in their game. So when Spencer makes two of two FTs that should be considered a bonus, not an expectation. With all due respect, that is a bunch of crap. No one gets a pass on free throws. We need everyone good. I don't want a game to come down to a few points and have a big many screw up the game just because he does not focus on this important aspect of the game. The MWC is filled with close games. We need to consistently be shooting better than 70 percent (all players!). I agree with the comment that my primary frustration with Fish is that his teams just plain suck at free throw shooting and have for years. Other than that, Fish is a basketball God. |
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Post by northcountymike on Jan 25, 2015 20:04:28 GMT -8
I'm sorry, but I think this is complete bull$#!+. How many times are we going to "defend" a s#!++y performance at the line? Night after night, it never gets any better. Yup, the game is 40 minutes long but we got within one point after CSU "shot the lights out" in the first half. Missing free throws also doesn't allow us to set up our full-court press which can be very effective. Sure, CSU shot well, but missing our free throws hurts and are a big part of the "100's of plays in a game." They are just as important as a turnover, foul, etc. Stop giving our free throw shooting a pass. Maybe [perfect form] NC Mike would like to donate some of his time and help some of these Aztec's with their free throw shooting. While you are at it Mikey, give Rajon Rondo-Dwight Howard and so many other MILLION dollar players a few helpful hints. Well, you've got me thinking now...I do have 4 years of eligibility left. And while I might not be the most athletic guy out there, nor the guy who could hit better than 1/10 wide-open three pointers, nor the guy who could handle a full-court game longer than about two possessions, my free throw shooting couldn't be any worse than what we have now. Why does everyone jump in and say things to the extent of "if you're so good, why don't you coach" when anyone mentions a weakness? It has nothing to do with that and I'd like for you to point out where I said that I was a coach and that my "perfect form" could help these guys. It's ok, I'll wait. It's not even about giving hints anyway; I think it's about repetition and/or mental preparedness, which I think this team possibly lacks (oh wait, I can't say that either for fear that someone will call me out and say that I claimed to be a psychologist). |
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