Charity Ice

Dr. Blackheart is back for more .... here's the latest in his on-going series of guest columns which look in-depth at the Warriors on a variety of topics.

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As our Feared Warriors march into the post-season tournaments with only “do or die” games remaining, the chance that these games will be decided by free throws will be very likely—as seen in our last four NCAA games which were decided by a total of eight points. Due to the nature of this sudden death, the topic of free throw shooting always is a controversial one this time of year as a missed charity shot at the end is “oh so” immediate. This controversy has percolated from time to time during the season as well as Buzz has stated that he does not spend formal practice time on free throw shooting.

As a result of all of this, I dug into this issue to get the discussion agenda going as MU heads into the Big East Tournament and beyond.

Buzz’s Teams Making MU History
At the close of this regular season, Buzz’s first three teams combined have the best free throw shooting percent in MU’s recorded history at 72.1%. This is a little less than 4% points higher than MU’s average over the past 63 years. This is contra to the trend in the NCAA and NBA which have seen virtually no change in free throw shooting percents over the past 50 years. Obviously, this is a point on the board for Buzz’s philosophy in this endless and emotionally charged debate as he is going against Hall of Fame coaches on this list. Certainly 24/7/365 player access to “The Al” has also helped in this regard.

Coach	FTA	FTM	FT %
Tex	1223	1819	67.2%
Nagle	2635	3876	68.0%
Hickey	2392	3712	64.4%
McGuire	6042	8914	67.8%
Raymonds	2258	3236	69.8%
Majerus	1236	1822	67.8%
Dukiet	1121	1626	68.9%
O'Neill	2231	3136	71.1%
Deane	2145	3235	66.3%
Crean	4289	6031	71.1%
Williams	1704	2362	72.1%
Total MU Recorded History	27,966	40,842	68.5%

2010-11 Season Strong
This season’s team is ranked at 154 according to Pomeroy in free throw shooting at 69.8%, a few decimal points above the national mean of 69.2%. In Big East play, MU is shooting an improving 70.1%, good for 8th in league play. MU leads the BE is both free throws attempted and made, which is a reflection of Buzz’s paint touch offensive philosophy. In support of the fact that MU’s offense is the 14th most efficient nationally and that MU scored the most points per game of any Big East team, Buzz earns another point, as MU’s opponents only shot 65.8% against us (69.0% for the Big East foes).

	FTA	FTM	FT %
MU All Minutes	547	784	69.8%
OPP All Minutes	354	538	65.8%
MU BE All Minutes	324	462	70.1%
BE OPP All Minutes	238	345	69.0%

Crunch Time Blues
In the recently published book Scorecasting, the authors dug into various sports’ myths including the impact of icing a placekicker or free throw shooter in pressure situations. They looked at reams of play-by-play data and found icing does not work: “Icing doesn’t freeze a player or heat them up. You might call it a lukewarm strategy.”

Curious, I mined this season’s play-by-play data to see how these situations look for our Warriors, who are relatively inexperienced to pressure play. I segmented play into two buckets when the pressure of free throws is seemingly greater and players are more fatigued: 1) the last two minutes of the game and OT and 2) the last four minutes. What I found was a bit surprising, and actually fairly consistent across the games.

• Despite shooting at a near 70% clip, MU shooters tightened up at the end of games. This has been especially true in Big East games (50% free throw shooting). More so, MU is an abysmal 40% on the road in BE play and a lackluster 60% at home.
• Our opponents, who shot below the national average in the games against MU, stepped it up considerably at crunch time. In fact, our BE enemies shot a whopping 83.3% in the last two minutes of games, an increase from 69%.
• Excluding the crunch time data, MU shot at 73% for the rest of the game in Big East play, which would put this team at the average of Buzz’s first two experienced teams and just off the BE team lead. Our BE opponents shot a paltry 65% for the remaining majority of the games. One point against Buzz’s philosophy he again adopted for this season's inexperienced players.

	Free Throw %
	Last 2 Minutes	Last 4 Minutes
Marquette
All Games	60.2%	63.0%
BE Games	50.0%	55.6%
BE Home	60.0%	61.5%
BE Away	40.0%	50.0%
Opponents
All Games	77.0%	74.8%
BE Games	83.3%	78.7%

Outlook
Tired legs and shaky nerves lay ahead. As we saw at Seton Hall, Buzz will have to go deeper into his bench to save energy. But, at crunch time, let’s get the ball into Jimmy Butler’s hands who is 10th in Big East and who has been in the pressure cookers before. Go MU!

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