Horrible free throw shooting

[Shady]

Let a winnable game slip away. Will the coaching staff have any answers to rectify this dubious free throw shooting percentage?

[Lightning Rod]

Will the coaching staff have any answers to rectify this?

I believe 12 year olds could do as well, or better.

[John Bigboote]

Will the coaching staff have any answers to rectify this?

Probably do free throw drills right after guarding the corner three practice.

[rightthinker4]

I don’t think Gates wastes practice time on free throws. They are what they are. It’s their Achilles heel. Cost them a game today. It won’t be the last this year. May even keep them out of the tournament.

[Shady]

I don’t think Gates wastes practice time on free throws. They are what they are. It’s their Achilles heel. Cost them a game today. It won’t be the last this year. May even keep them out of the tournament.

I, too, wonder how much the emphasis is on free throw shooting. Does the team have serious FT drills? Or is free throw shooting an after thought?

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Free throws are not free at Missouri.

[Whatashame]

Nothing will change until the players and coaches want things to change. This isn’t the first game this year that FTs have been a problem.

Gates has been around long enough to know that poor FT shooting is a recipe for disaster. The fact that Robinson is struggling in this area too is really an indictment of him. Why would any player allow himself to become a poor FT shooter. For Robinson to be shooting in the 60s is ridiculous.

[abnerdoubled]

i would think that is something players would work on as individuals

[rezero]

We used to do a drill in high school where we would run 3 laps around the court and shoot 5 FTs. If you missed any of the 5 you would have to do the number of laps you missed then try again. At the beginning of the season some poor kids would spend the entire practice running and shooting free throws. By the end of the year the entire team shot lights out as we learned to shoot them at all stages of exhaustion. Gates needs to adopt this drill. I fear a couple of players from the team would never practice anything but FTs.

[Red7]

Free throws ain’t gonna get you on ESPN. Ain’t no free throws on the playground. A team who doesn’t play defense and has no organized offense (not to mention a Chines fire drill of player rotation and substitution) ain’t gonna waste no time practicin’ no free throws.

[Lightning Rod]

i would think that is something players would work on as individuals

If they are working on them they're not working hard enough. Some of those FT last night were absolute bricks. I expect your big men to shoot a lower percentage, but there is no reason to miss as badly as Phillips did last night on his FT, absolutely horrible and inexcusable, and Ant had some horrible FT last night too. No one on the team is very good except T.O. and Crews and that's got to change or they have no chance in close games.

[MizzouMarv]

We used to do a drill in high school where we would run 3 laps around the court and shoot 5 FTs. If you missed any of the 5 you would have to do the number of laps you missed then try again. At the beginning of the season some poor kids would spend the entire practice running and shooting free throws. By the end of the year the entire team shot lights out as we learned to shoot them at all stages of exhaustion. Gates needs to adopt this drill. I fear a couple of players from the team would never practice anything but FTs.

We had an old arena with a raised court & a balcony. For every free throw missed in the previous game we'd run around the court, down into the regular arena seating, up to the back row, up the stairs to the balcony, across the balcony, down the steps & back to the court. If we had missed 12, we would have all been heaving. When we missed a FT during a game, we were thinking about another lap more than what it effected the score. We became pretty good FT shooters. Of course, they built a new auditorium a few years after we graduated.

[Lightning Rod]

Free throws ain’t gonna get you on ESPN. Ain’t no free throws on the playground. A team who doesn’t play defense and has no organized offense (not to mention a Chines fire drill of player rotation and substitution) ain’t gonna waste no time practicin’ no free throws.

That's a big part of it, no doubt, agree on the sub pattern too. Seems Gates just subs and hopes someone steps up and surprises, he really has no clue. To play Boateng or Burns in anything but a blowout is foolhardy.

[dhsux]

I would describe it this way.

Mind boggling.

A number of players should be embarrassed.

[California Cardinal Fan]

If you can't make at least 65-70% of your free throws, you don't deserve to be on the court. Other than an uncontested 'bunny,' this is the easiest shot in the game. This is on Gates as much as the players, because he obviously does not value free throws, or he would be putting more focus into holding his players accountable for making them.

Yeah, yeah, crowd noise, pressure, all that. Especially now that college ball is obviously not an amateur affair, players are openly playing for the $$ and not the school. The Gipper has been dead for a hundred years. These players need to understand that being paid—a lot!— means proving you're worth the $$. Shooting 50%, or less, from the stripe means you're not.

Going 1-11 from 3pt range also means it's time for the announcers to stop talking about what a good shooting team Mizzou is. They aren't. They're just showing,sooner than Grill and last year's bunch did, that they choke under pressure.

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Free "throws" describe this team's free shots from 15 feet well. Like shot putting or hammer throwing. The bad form and/or obvious lack of focus and routine are apparent to everyone except the coaching staff apparently.