Much has been said about the lack of talent and effort on our basketball team. Even with the current squad, our free throw shooting is beyond pitiful. First off, we can't even get to the line. Once we're there, it's brick city. As a team, through 8 games: 72/131 for 55.0%. Our opponents have made 106/162 for 65.4%, and that means we're at a 34 point deficit solely at the line.

I decided to break down how many FT attempts our players get per 30 minutes played, as I thought that might be the best way to get a somewhat fair comparison based on a theoretical game. (Hopefully I'll get it into a readable format!) Take a look.

player                      FT attempts/minutes                   attempts per 30 minutes              FT results

MR                           10/288                                        1.042                                             7/10 70%

ML                            34/275                                        3.709                                            21/34 61.8%

ND                           15/174 (missed 2 games)              2.586                                            10/15 66.7%

RN                           23/137                                          5.036                                            12/23 52.2%

JA                            18/235                                         2.298                                            9/18 50%

JK                            5/150                                           1                                                    1/5 20%

players with less minutes...

TH                            3/40                                            2.25                                                1/3 33.3%

JMM                         4/42                                            2.857                                              0/4 ha ha ha%

BL                            3/56                                            1.607                                              2/3 66.7%

As a team, we're shooting 16.375 attempts per game so far.

I realize we're not a team that has driven the ball much, but I think that's kind of my point, even considering the players we have. I also know it's not necessarily fair to compare players at different positions...so I wanted to rank guards and bigs by FTA/30 min.

Guards, most to least: ML JA MR

Bigs, most to least: RN (shock!) JMM ND TH BL JK

And the entire team, most FTA/30 min to least: RN ML JMM ND TH JA  BL MR JK

We're not full of All-Americans, and CBH may or may not have the ideal offensive system installed for his current players...but missing 45% of our free throws is simply unacceptable.