Free throw woes

It wasn’t exactly a free throw shooting clinic for either team when Alta and Brighton played on Tuesday night. The Hawks shot a dreadful 4-of-14 from the foul line. The Bengals looked bad too, connecting on only 2-of-7 free throw attempts.

Alta coach Jim Barker shrugged it off while talking to reporters after the game. He pointed out that Shaquille O’ Neal helped his team win tons of games even while playing through terrible free throw shooting.

While that is true, the reality is that bad free throw shooting can unravel a sure victory faster than just about anything else.

I think back to the Brighton – Bingham 5A semifinal game last year where the Bengals failed to score a point in the fourth quarter. The Miners forced overtime and ultimately grabbed the victory. But that scenario could have been avoided if Brighton hit even a single free throw. The Bengals made trips to the line quite a few times in the fourth quarter of that game, but missed every single attempt.

I’m not looking to pick on just Brighton or Alta here. I have seen dozens of teams who seem to struggle at the free throw line in crunch time. It never ceases to amaze me how so many teams can struggle with free throw shooting when it can make such a huge difference between determining a win or a loss in a handful of games during any given season.

For a team struggling at the line, perhaps a good remedy would be to practice free-throws in simulated game time situations.

I’ve seen many practices in the past where a coach will have players shoot a designated number of free throws in a row at the end of a practice. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t simulate adequately times where a player has to shoot after expending energy on a fastbreak layup or fighting through a tough defender in the post. But if a player practices free throw shooting in simulated tough situations regularly, it helps prepare them both physically and mentally whenever they experience similar things during game time.

To me, it would be worth putting an extra emphasis and effort into making accurate free throw shooting a higher priority. Any team willing to do it would definitely have a better edge in tight games than most of their opponents – especially come state tournament time.

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