Todd Golden identifies how Florida must improve in clutch situations Free throw shooting seems to be the elephant in the room. Really would have liked for him to address our poor free throw shooting and how it impacted those close games.
I'd have been disappointed if he had dwelled on FT shooting. That would be a cop out IMO. Just because he is not mentioning it to the press does not mean they are not working on it. This is what Handlogten said about it: “It’s a massive thing after every practice I’m shooting, at least 200, bare minimum, I’m trying to make like 80 percent of them out of 50 and if I don’t do it, I re-start, until I get it,” Handlogten said on how he is working to improve his free throw shooting. “I’m doing the same thing before practice, too, and so a lot of it has to do with repetitions and if I can get as many of those up, like, going 0 for 6 on my last six free throws is unacceptable and I’m aware of that and it’s something I’m going to improve on.”
Agreed. It's not like Golden & his assistants are unaware of the situation or incapable of sharing techniques for improvement. My guess is that he approached the Q from a strategic mindset.
The biggest issue is defense...even with all the missed free throws, taking too many 3's, turnovers, Kugel disappearing or Richards going 0 for 7 against UK...they still scored 85 points...that should win every game. But our defense against quality teams has not been good. Baylor scored 95, UK 87, Wake 82. The UVA loss was early without Pullen and if we held them again to 73 we would easily beat them. We were fortunate to outscore Michigan but we needed an unbelievable offensive effort and throw in a half court shot at the end of the half and another 3 from Pullen at the end of the game just to get to OT. Defense beats quality teams...the offense is scoring enough to win games but the defense is not up to a championship level. If this team can hold teams under 80 points they should win.
Practice time is dictated by the NCAA. If you spend all your allotted practice time on free throws, you're neglecting the game plan, offense, defense, individual skills, and everything else. So the players need to dedicate themselves to free throw practice on their own time. It sounds like they are.
Free throw shooting is tough at this level. Obviously if you have kid that has never shot free throws well, you can work on changing his form...but that should have been started whenever they arrived. For the others, like Clayton who has shown he can shoot in the 95% range, you can analyze what his shot looks like this year vs last year and see if he needs to bend his knees more or keep his elbows closer together, etc. But "fixing" free throws of guys that have been playing their whole lives is difficult, especially when they've shown they can do it in the past. IMO, the issue is between their ears. Are they not concentrating enough? Are they tired? Are they wilting under pressure? I have no idea. But just "fixing" a college player's free throw shooting is not simple. I do hope they're practicing more, but the longer it lasts, the more pressure they'll be under when they step up to the line.
Yeah I am sure he grows it as a mental thing now and that putting public pressure on them over it won’t help.
I've said for years that guys don't know they need to focus on EXACTLY where they want the ball to go, namely, just over the front of the rim. Many just stare at the basket and hope their natural talent directs the ball to go through the hoop. It's like guys that drive and kiss the ball off of the glass and make it. Those guys know precisely where on the backboard they want the ball to hit on a given trajectory/speed. You have to be purposeful defining your target. But what the hell do i know...?
Exactly! It’s like a golfer who gets the yips on putting, you know it’s an issue but talking about makes it worse. The players know they need to work on it, having your coach mention it everyday probably wouldn’t help.
Did he mention defense? For awhile I thought the defensive woes was just our fast tempo, but no we really just can’t stop anybody. The most concerning thing right now is we just don’t seem to adjust on offense or defense.
Yes, I think so. But, sometimes the ball doesn’t go where it’s aimed. I always tried to direct the ball over the front of the rim. I have no idea where some of our guys are aiming.
Statistically, all three of these are more important to winning than free throws. And not really close. Field goal percentage is about three times more important than free throw percentage, rebounds and turnovers are about twice as important as free throw percentage. And those relationship hold true across a variety of leagues- NBA, College, Eurobasketball, even the Olympics.
