How can Bama get better at shooting free throws?

FT shooting has plagued Bama basketball for as long as I can remember watching since the early 90s. It has directly cost us games recently, Iona and UCLA in the tourney last year for sure.

For the longest time I theorize it was recruiting athletes vs. basketball players that fundamentally know how to shoot. But now that we have some good shooters it continues. Both Quinerly and Shack are below average FT shooters for guards. Your guards should be 85% plus from the strike. THese guys should be counted on the FT line when the game is on the line. IT is beyond frustrating. With Oats style being scoring from the FT line, layups and 3s EXCLUSIVELY- his team needs to be 80% from the FT line and 40% from 3 point line collectively to be successful.

Anybody blaming last nights loss on JQ is WRONG. How about we show tf up from the start instead of waiting until we are down 52-39 to start playing

We shot 75% from the free throw line yesterday. I think we are honing in on the wrong thing that lost us the game last night.

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Coaches can help with certain mechanical adjustments but at the end of the day the FT is a muscle memory play to the greatest extent.

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Free throws are generally taught to be shot using primarily the legs and the wrists, while concentrating on the front of the rim.
The intent is to use as few moving parts as possible, have a set "ritual" to follow every time, and to shoot enough practice shots as to allow for muscle memory to take over.
I personally believe the biggest problem most players experience is the lack of complete concentration. The "ritual" should encompass that.

Ask Joe Pendry

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How can Bama get better at shooting free throws?

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To improve at shooting FTs, you need to be able to replicate in practice the two things players actually feel during a game...fatigue and pressure. Something like this:

At the end of practice each player has to run to the top of Coleman, back down, across the floor to the other side, to the top and back down again...twenty times.

Twenty trips to the top and down, across the floor to the other side, and to the top and back down again.

They shoot 20 FTs in blocks of 5.

They knock off one trip for each FT made.

Player shoots 5, makes 4...they go run one trip, then shoot another set of five, etc.

If they go 20 for 20, they don't run at all.

Something like that is the only way to replicate fatigue and pressure.

I've coached on basketball teams on the past that had success with this.

Just look at what AAU basketball has done. All they do is run up and down the court making flashy plays, alley oops, and dunks. No fundamental training.

They start chucking 3’s at and early age and they use that same form to shoot 3’s and in most cases this affects the arc of FTs, coming out flat.

FTs need to have a different “shot” form from shooting 3s.

Look up Kyle Macy, Calvin Murphy sometime.

For kicks, go to a middle school basketball game and watch everybody shoot 3s during warmups, they all do it.

We should wear Duke uniforms when we shoot a freethrow

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Run 5 suicide drills at the end of practice for every FT you miss.

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Fine, but you need to intersperse the FTs and the suicides. You have to practice shooting FTs when you're tired and breathing hard.