The Importance of Free Throws in Winning NCAA Tournament Games
A Calipari team lost again in the NCAA tournament because of poor free throw shooting. Calipari may one day recruit enough athletes to win a championship but so far his Memphis team lost to Kansas, he was ousted last year by poor free throw shooting versus West Virginia and this year lost to Uconn because of misses from the charity stripe. Perhaps one day he will realize that combining great athletes and great free throw shooting makes it a lot easier to win championships.
Jeremy Bauman posted a great summary of the importance of free throws in the 2011 NCAA tournament. Below is a snippet of his article along with a link to his full post.
As everybody knows, free throws play a critical part during and down the stretch of any game at any level. If you’re ahead 65-57 with 3:00 to go in the fourth, if you knock your freebees down when you get to the line, your team will increase its odds of winning the game. If you are behind and you struggle from the stripe in a 65-62 game with 3:00 remaining, the odds of notching a win sway towards the other team. That’s not science; it’s basketball.
Everywhere you look in the past, there are reminders that free throws are essential—during NCAA Tournament games the 15-foot free shot makes and crushes dreams. One particular instance, the 2008 NCAA Title Game between the Kansas Jayhawks (14-15) and Memphis Tigers (12-19), sticks out like a sore thumb. Memphis held a 62-57 lead with 1:10 left, a title within their reach. They went to the line five times in the final 1:10 but only made one of them, leaving the door open for Kansas to make a colossal comeback (which they did).
In this year’s tournament, there have also been reminders that the free throw can win you or lose you a ball game.
In terms of volume, UCLA had the most spectacular performance. In their first round game against Michigan State they got to the line an astounding 47 times. Though they only capitalized on 30 of them, they put themselves into the second round (where they got to the line another 25 times, converting just 16) and coincidentally lost to Florida 73-65 in a game that was close heading down the stretch.
Read the full article by Jeremy Bauman - No Such Thing as Free, A rundown of the importance of free throws during tourney time.