In BT play only, through 14 games, our opponents are shooting 79.4% on FTs, while we are shooting 67.7%.
Here's a pretty crazy FT stat
- Thread starter mushroomgod_1
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Look at the low foul rate of our interior players vs the high foul rate of our perimeter players for part of the answer. Our guards foul too much and tend to foul perimeter players at an above average ratio. Perimeter players tend to shoot better. Plus our worst FT shooters shoot the most FT's. While our best don't get fouled.
Then our guards need to hack the opponents' front line more often instead of hacking the opposing guards.
TJD has done a good job of staying out of foul trouble over his career. Foul trouble has been an issue with X, we need him to play a clean game tonight.
Davis is a handful. It will be interesting to see how we guard him, and if that puts us in foul difficulty. I suspect Trey may be matched up with him at some point.
Davis is a handful. It will be interesting to see how we guard him, and if that puts us in foul difficulty. I suspect Trey may be matched up with him at some point.
Bullseye.
TJD seems destined to be a 55% FT shooter for life. And Race hovers around 60-65% TJD has taken half our free throws (more/less...maybe more?) over the past few seasons. Mathematically it's impossible for IU to be a 70% FT shooting team right now.
Your last statement is a bullseye as well-- Kopp- who is an 86% career FT shooter, has little ability to ever get to the FT line. The only two games all season where Kopp shot more than 2 FTs were Cuse (7) and Jackson State (4). Kopp has only 5 FT attempts COMBINED in conference, and has only taken one FT attempt in the past month (7 games). More signs of a broken offense struggling for ways to score.
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there are other ways of getting to the line, especially once we're in the bonus. But it starts with not standing behind the 3 Pt line waiting for a pass. Alford wasn't an inside player by any stretch but he lived at the line. The offense moved and that drew fouls. Our offense has been flat and motionless since Jan 1 aside from a few spurts.
Good thoughts/facts.
In the end, we still need to get to the line a lot. Whoever it is that's drawing the fouls. If we had a plethora of knock down shooters on the perimeter, I might think otherwise. But since we don't, even if we're only shooting 65%, that's better than what our offense produces otherwise. And obviously has all the other benefits that come with getting to the line.
To your point though, I would like to see X, Trey, Parker, Miller, Tamar, etc... get to the line more than they do. Not sure if our offense really is conducive to them getting inside to draw those fouls. But on a personal level, outside Parker and X to a degree, none of the rest are in a shooting groove right now. One of the best ways to get yourself into a groove, is attack the basket and get some layups and/or get fouled. TJD and Race clog things up down there, so it might be counterproductive for those guys to try it more...but there would be a lot of benefits to it.
Zach McRoberts went an entire season without shooting a free throw. And he was a team captain. For years the Hoosiers have not brought in backcourt players who could create their own shots. They don’t drive or pump fake. Or make free throws.
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no disrespect intended...but your comment made it sound like Parker is in a shooting groove right now. The results from MSU say otherwise. I don't see a great vibe coming from him right now. Hope it turns around tonight.
Kopp's inability to get to the line is really hurting. I don't mean to pick on him, he seems like an ok guy. He's one of the best career FT shooters in the conference right now. But he's only been to the line 5 times in all conference games. He's never shot a ton of FTs but right now he's on pace to shoot only half the volume of FTs this season vs what he shot the previous 2 yrs at NW.
You may be correct on average, but if you could weight important games, Trayce is on the bench a lot in the first half with 2 fouls. Happened a lot his first two years as well.
I know he had issues versus PU and IL this year.
I suppose I have purged a bunch of games over the last 2 years from my memory banks. Unfortunately “important” games for us don’t mean as much to me as important games did years ago. Tonight is an important game, but it’s to keep our season from unraveling. Wish we had the type of important games that were good important games. 😉
I didn't see the MSU game. Just a general comment that, overall, Parker has shot well this year. And X I would say isn't as reliant on the 3 point shot for him to be effective, so I don't think he really needs to change much of anything to get his shot going... Miller, Trey, Tamar mainly...those 3, without taking whatever their specific responsibilities are in our offense...they should be trying to get layups and draw fouls early in games. Its amazing what those things can do for your confidence. And to your point, if the MSU game has shaken Parker's confidence, he should be doing it too.
I think the suspension shook his confidence (and the uptick in B1G defense locking him down). He was 1-9 from the field and 1-6 from FT line at MSU. 2-15 on the day. He's never been a rah-rah kind of player but his body language on the bench at NW wasn't good, and wasn't much better on the court at MSU.
like IU at OSU, '91? Games that decide B1G championships and possible tourney #1 seeds. Those are the "important" games I remember and wish we still experienced.
Today, "important" game means a game that can get our ass on or off the bubble.
for guys like TJD who have never hit a high percent of free throws conventionally, i'd make them shoot 100 a day all summer underhanded.
TJD might never have done any better going Rick Barry, but i'd have made sure we at least would have found out for sure if he could or couldn't have done better.
bad putters can't try enough different techniques to try and shave a stroke a round, (often the difference between 1st and 10th, or pocketing a couple hundred thousand in a week, or missing the cut), but poor ft shooters seem too proud to try anything different.
btw, over their pro careers, Rick Barry shot free throws underhanded as well as Steph Curry shots them conventionally, for 2 of the greatest Warriors ever.
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I think we are seeing this from Tamar. He was 4-4 from the line in each of his last 2 games played. And he started making FGs after he made that first FT in the Illinois game, after shooting 0-6 against Maryland.
Kopp is shooting .286 on 2s in BT play. At NW he was always in the 40s on 2 pt attempts. He's just a horrible fit for our offense, such as it is. Frankly. I don't want to see him 'attempt to get to the line'. He's horrible at drawing fouls. He should only shoot two types of shots: open 3s, and 2s after shot fakes.
Also, Kopp is shooting .286 on 2 pt atts in BT play, PS .333. They are avg 7.3 and 10.3 per every 40M of BT play....really bad for guys that bring nothing but shooting to the game.
They say long 2 pt shots are the worst shots in college ball.....but they are not as bad as Kopp or Stewart trying to drive or shoot off the dribble.
They need to shoot 3s and open 2 pt jump shots almost exclusively. If we can't get those shots for them, don't play them.
Parker has a higher percentage of his shots (78%) from beyond the arc than Kopp (53%). Both players rely almost exclusively on assisted shots from 3. Both shoot well from out there, at least statistically speaking in the season (43% for P, 37% for Kopp).
we need people to find them, we need more efficiency from TJD (and the ability to pass out), we need better movement and penetrate and dishes.
I agree with what you are saying. Right now our outside game and inside game are not complimenting one another. We either need them to hit to open up things inside, or TJD and Race to dominate to open up the outside.
but, none of that matters if we can’t (or don’t) pass the ball or find the open man.
Balance. Our offense is too one dimensional.
Can't have everything going through posts ups. Easiest play in basketball to defend.
Wisconsin does great job of clogging up the paint area. TJD (and Race) need to make that pass tonight instead of shooting against double and triple teams.
