(12-07-2017 07:42 PM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote: (12-07-2017 02:07 PM)Rocco Wrote: (12-07-2017 01:14 PM)Pete24 Wrote: The Tribe is now shooting 80.9% from the free throw line, 5th in the NCAA. The team's improvement on the line, from last year, is amazing. I'd like to know what Shaver did in the off-season to improve their free throw shooting. Obvious answer is that they are practicing free throw shots more, but I be there is more to it than that. Hope Jay & Charlie ask him that question in one of their interviews ...
Cohn has 22 attempts, Pierce 17 and Milon 11. Pierce only had 27 attempts last year so I'm not sure we have a true idea of his FT shooting abilities yet. Cohn was an 83% shooter in 2016 before shooting 73% last year and 79% as a freshman, so it's not outlandish to think he's an 80%+ FT shooter and last year was the down year. I'm sure I'll be called a bad fan and hater for thinking Milon won't continue to make 100% of his attempts but I'm okay with that. He did go 14-14 at BC so maybe he is the greatest FT shooter to ever live.
Last year Whitman/Knight averaged a combined 8.4 FT attempts/game. This year Knight's averaging 8.1 attempts/game. I'm skeptical that there's a team-wide improvement since we're dealing with a lot of small numbers for just about everyone, but it sure looks like Knight's a lot better at it and that's what is making the biggest difference. Knight could miss his next 20 free throws and still be shooting better than he did last year.
In the season ticket package this year there was a pledge sheet that was tied to FT shooting. I think the team target was 72.5% on at least 10 FT in order to trigger the pledge in each game. That along with Shaver's quote about shooting a lot more in practice leads me to believe that we're legitimately better as a result of more emphasis on FT in practice.
Last year W&M averaged 22.2 FT attempts/game. This year they're attempting 17.6 attempts/game. Playing with it a little:
-As mentioned before, Knight/Whitman (8.4 attempts, 59.6% combined) has been replaced by Knight (8.1 attempts, 80%)
-Dixon (4.9 attempts, 87%) has been replaced by Cohn and Pierce (4.9 attempts, 87%)
-Cohn 2017 (1.7 attempts, 73%) has been replaced by Milon (1.4 attempts, 100%)
-Pierce 2016 (.9 attempts, 63%) has been replaced by Burchfield (1 attempt, 75%)
-No one's replaced Prewitt (3.9 attempts, 64.7%), and that's why attempts are down this year
Those combinations account for 19.8 (89%) of their attempts last season and 15.5 (88%) this season. The point of this exercise is not to dump on Prewitt. Even if he wasn't making those shots he was racking up fouls on the opponent along with everything else he did.
I think as a team they are better at FTs, but most of them have shot so few FTs that it's hard to say yet if it's real. The one guy who has shot a lot of attempts has seen his numbers spike, so it looks like his improvement is real. The big thing is that they replaced two 60% shooters with an 80% shooter and no longer carrying a 64% shooter.
