Rebecca poses an interesting question

[Wally East]

Eh, where did that thing about UConn come from??? Huskies were 12-16 in their last game, a decent 75%. They haven't been 12-20 in a game since back in Nov. against OSU. They've been pretty good lately, with the 7-11 against Rutgers being the worst. Did Rebecca actually post that?

No, she did not.

 

[Bestiarius]

I'm amazed that players shoot FTs as well as they do. In a competitive game where the players are exerting great effort to the limit of their endurance, to stop and have to immediately take free throws is not the easiest thing to do. Kind of like the biathlon. I recall that when I was playing, my hands would be shaking from the exertion and making shots wasn't so easy. (Perhaps my conditioning could have been better). When players practice FTs, do they do it while they are aerobically stressed? Probably not.

All our players do better than Wilt Chamberlain. I believe one year he shot 38%, and 51% for his career, and look how close he was to the basket!

 

[Wally East]

When players practice FTs, do they do it while they are aerobically stressed? Probably not.

I would think that they would. You'd want your practice to simulate game conditions as closely as possible.

 

[pap49cba]

No, she did not.

Yes she did. Go look for yourself.

Rebecca Lobo on Twitter

 

[pinotbear]

You betcha. All those kids care about nowadays is attending those AAU camps and showing up all the other campers with their spiffy FT shooting. Whatever happened to the good old days when they worked on their flops, gotta a few tattoos, and tried a couple hundred futile dunks. Now all they learn is how to dish the ball, and nail some bombs, strip the ball-handler and other things that just pander to the watching college coaches. Not like it used to be -- snarl, gnash teeth, spew.

+1 for "spew"

 

[sparky]

FT's are not the sexy shot and usually you don't try to foul the best ft shooter on the team. I'm and oldie, but a goodie and every day I shoot 50 ft's and make 40+. ids today see that as boring and would much rather practice the euro step and blow a layup or try a 3. And when they aren't doing that they practice illegal cross over moves.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Our minds can play tricks on us as we try to travel back 10, 20 years and pick out a memory here or there that seems for us the model of the way it was, when often it was that the play was so startling and unique that makes it memorable. And we tend to remember say two Berube FTs and think, "Well that's the way they always shot back then," while actually Carla was only 67% that year on the way to a respectable 71% career average.

For every Sue Bird who could shoot 94% on frees in her senior year (on just 104 attempts though), there is a Kara Wolters who not only was the "black hole" regarding assists (or lack there of) but was the clanger queen at the FT line who finished at 58.4% for her career, well below her FG% of 62.8%. (And remember Kara, if anyone needs to be squashed concerning this revelation, it's still huskybill.) Rebecca was a much more respectable 69.5% and above average for her teams, and that percentage is where the 150th rated middle-of-the pack teams shoot today.

Overall, FT shooting has ticked upward over the years, but there will always be some teams that clank them, and as the bar (but not the rim) gets raised, we notice more when there are top teams shooting under 67%. At the far back are teams like Georgia and Rutgers, who are occasionally ranked. More surprisingly, there are top teams at the 250-300 rated level that indeed could have their deep-tourney hopes crushed by freezie freebie shooting, some teams like Rebecca mentioned (okay, she really is on to something, but just don't mention UConn) including KY 65.6%, Stanford 65.3%, Duke 64.9%, UScar 64.7%, Louisville 64.4% plus a bunch of peppy mid majors such as Gonzaga, Middle Tenn and San Diego that should know better. Notre Dame by the way is at 71.8% in 88th, a ways below UConn's 75.8% for 18th place. MD is usually very good and is at 8th place and 77.8%.

So yeah, if you're a Stanford or Duke fan you might get grumpy and start complaining about how the women can't hit FTs anymore, but Husky fans want their players walking the line. So maybe Rebecca as a national sports announcer is getting too broad in her team sympathies, or maybe she's just taking a dig at a bunch of the Huskies' top competitors. And FTs are like refs, you mainly notice them when they're really bad.

 

[Icebear]

Maggie Lucas is currently 107 for 110 or 97.3%

 

[DobbsRover2]

So, some people thought I made this up?

Well of course you did. That link you gave was to the antimatter Rebecca Lobo tweet site. I don't have a link to the real site, but I'm sure on that one she's tweeting that she really admires the UConn FT shooting this year.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Maggie Lucas is currently 107 for 110 or 97.3%

But she's just a old-style freak of nature who probably learned to play basketball back in the 1940s. More representative of today's FT shooters has to be someone like Bria Smith of Louisville who makes them not at 58% this year, and fortunately for the Cardinals she fouled out of the Baylor game last year and that Monique Reed got the chance to bury the final two FTs.

Louisville this year is not a good FT shooting team, but star Shoni Schimmel is an example of a great freebie artist at 84.6%. Problem is that Smith not Shoni is the one who gets to the FT line a lot and messes up the team average. And lest one think that all BB abilities run in the family, Shoni's sister Jude is shooting frees at a 43.8% clip, though she's only gone to the line 16 times this year and much of this season's woes could be related to the injuries that have kept her out of the Cards' last 5 games and sent all of her stats this year into a dive.

 

[reno tony]

Fatigue can be a big problem. I can't remember what coach, but it was a respectable one, he had his players shoot foul shots until they made fifty at the end of practice. His logic was that when the game is on the line the kids will be tired so that was his way of simulating game time.

 

[meyers7]

I'm confused, was that comment for humor or racist?

Yes herbie, we know.

 

[Wally East]

Yes she did. Go look for yourself.
Rebecca Lobo on Twitter

Not seeing where she tweeted "Note: UConn is shooting 76% from the line YTD. The interesting number is in 12 games played KML has shot only 6 FTs." (Yes, she did say UConn was 12 of 20.)

 

[pap49cba]

Not seeing where she tweeted "Note: UConn is shooting 76% from the line YTD. The interesting number is in 12 games played KML has shot only 6 FTs." (Yes, she did say UConn was 12 of 20.)

Okay. I added those last bits after checking the YTD stats.