Great win last night, but we were still only 11-17 in free throws. Iti was 0-3, but as a team we need to get up to 70% at least.
Take out Iti’s 0-for, and we were pretty good. We got far enough ahead where the pressure wasn’t on high, though. Iti has got to find away to shoot 50-60% from the line. He looks completely lost at the line right now. We can’t give teams freebies like that when he goes to the line. It kills our momentum and fuels theirs, especially in late game situations.
It doesn’t really help our team any or make us feel better, but there are a bunch of teams just sucking from the FT stripe this year.
Syracuse shot 31.8% (7-22) the other night against OSU and OSU wasn’t much better than us at 63.3% (19-30).
ISU’s game against Virginia (which I finally saw the end of, basically ISU lucked out as UVa missed a couple gimmes as time ran out, was seriously just a reversal of our game against the Tide) saw the Cyclones shoot 44.4% (12-27).
Ridiculous, if you ask me. Then again, I missed my first two FT’s in my rec league this past season. 
Iti puzzles me. I saw him in the Dell Curry tournament his senior year in high school, and he nailed free throws, and several of them, not just one or two. We
even commented on the fact that he was hitting them. So where did that touch go?
He has good shooting form. He’s just either not practicing him, or thinking too much about it.
I remember watching one of my few Hornet’s games a few years ago when they were playing against a Grant Hill led Pistons team. The game was won by a mid range jump shot by Elden Campbell. After the game, he attributed the make to “muscle memory” and made it clear he just went out there and shot it. Muscle memory is very simple to develop and maintain, and it’s clearly evident by our team it’s not lack of practice that’s holding us back at the line, it’s lack of mental discipline.
Maybe hypnotism would help. Didn’t Mullins have a hypnotist come in for some sessions some years back?
Free throws is in large part a mental thing. Once we get past whatever mental problem we have with free throws, we will be fine.