Bobcat Attack - Ohio Basketball

Ohio Basketball Topic

Topic: FREE THROWS

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bobcat2nc

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bobcat2nc

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Posted: 2/4/2012 8:05 PM

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Akron is last in league games in FT percentage according to MAC-sports.com site. Ohio is likely to drop from 6th spot after today (13-25). It is kind of hard to be too upset about the conference records of these two teams. 19-4 ain't too bad for the season either.

As bad as we have been at FT shooting, arguably only the Akron and Robert Morris games would have had a different outcome with better Ohio FT shooting.

On the other hand I don't see us coming out of the remaining 7 league games with too many victories if we are not winning the FT shooting part of the games. There are no gimme's remaining on the schedule.

How does a team come out of this FT shooting funk?

MonroeClassmate

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Posted: 2/4/2012 8:21 PM

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Take them back to the basics.

Pre-shot routine. Breathing control, relaxation, focus, sight, shoot, score. The shooter has to have the same ice-water thoughts going through his/her mind regardless of the situation. No score, tie score, last shot, guys in the lane, technical, guys out of the lane, conference championship--no distractions, complete focus on the item they have practiced thousands of times. If they are shooting lousy it probably means they are thinking about missing again instead of tossing a rare miss--a lack of concentration or worse, negative thoughts.

All should be forced in the off-season unless they shot 90% for the season to take some training lessons from top-marksman coaches. It certainly is a heck of a lot harder to ski 5km and have a heart rate popping at 180 bpm and snap off five bullseyes and than take off for another ski and do it all again then to walk to the line in basketball. This is the type of concentration and focus that top free throw shooters incorporate into their routine. Check out tapes of Earl Boykins shooting them--actually Ricardo appears to have a similar drill. Hold the ball, focus on the target, cleansing breath, focusing out distractions, dribble, relax, breath, pop--add one!

It bugs the heck out of me when guys do the LeBron BS and look anywhere but the rim until they are jacking it up. Can you imagine a bowler, horseshoe pitcher or marksman not sighting for several moments on their particular target?

Monroe Slavin

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Posted: 2/4/2012 9:07 PM

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Good point. Poor percentage freebie shooting and problems with 3-point shooting stand a decent chance of ending our season by having us lose to a team that we feel we are superior to.

A good facet is that we don't turn it over much. Also, though we aren't a notably good rebounding team, to me it appears to we work hard on the boards.

Free throw misses don't help. Jacking up 3-pointers early in the clock just doesn't seem go work for us, even if some of the shots are open lookers. When we work the ball around and are patient in a possession our 3-point shooting seems to be a lot better even if the shots we get this way are the same ones we get in an early-in-the-possession, open- look-and-fire-it situation.

Substance for my viewpoint is found in the first 5 minutes in today's game against CMU. We must've thrown up 15 3-balls in the first 5 minutes and only led by about 6 late in the first half. In the 2nd half, our D held steady, we got--and knocked down--good 3 point shots from working the ball around. We showed more patience on offense and the rout was on.

OU_Country

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