The free throw line has been a major issue for West Virginia in Big 12 Conference play, in multiple ways.
The team is struggling to get to the line consistently, while also sending opponents there too often. To make matters worse, even teams that have struggled with free throw shooting all season are suddenly making their shots at a much higher rate than usual against West Virginia.
WVU head coach Darian DeVries even joked that the team needs to work on their “free throw defense” a bit more in practice.
Night after night, the Mountaineers are being outshot at the free throw line, and on some occasions, it’s a significant disadvantage. In their loss to BYU, while there weren’t many free throws overall, a few untimely fouls in the second half allowed the Cougars to score more from the line. In the overtime loss to Baylor, the Bears were a staggering 27-for-32 from the charity stripe. Looking back at their loss to TCU, the Horned Frogs had 23 free throw attempts compared to just five for West Virginia.
In Big 12 play, WVU has attempted more free throws than their opponents only four times, and there are more than a handful of games where they failed to reach 10 attempts. It’s been frustrating for those on the floor and the fans, who have been all over the officials and rightfully so.
That being said, the Mountaineers can only worry about what they can control, and DeVries understands that.
“Our identity is to be physical and tough, and they’ve done a good job of that. We’re one of the better defenses in the country for that reason. It’s just a matter of cleaning those little reach fouls. That’s not being physical; not being tough. You got to have a little more disciplined at the end of it just to fight that urge to try and get that last little reach, and again, that’s four to six points. That’s it, that’s all we’re talking about. So, we’ve had four games, one win and three tough losses, and when you’re talking about a game being decided by two, four points, where can you find those two to four points from? That’s an area right now we can go to find it. We got to keep them off the line; we got to get to the line more.”
Getting too reachy or handsy is more of the problem than it is the officials. Have they missed calls? Oh yes, loads of them. But it happens every night. You can’t put the game in their hands. You have to take care of the matter yourself, such as defending with discipline and not getting out of position when guarding the ball.
Offensively, they have to put more pressure on the rim. It’s hard to get to the free throw line when the majority of the offense is hoisting up threes or low-percentage jumpers late in the shot clock. The problem is, aside from Javon Small, the Mountaineers don’t really have anyone who can get downhill and draw fouls in the paint.
So to rectify the problem, it transitions back to the defensive side of things. If they can clean up some of the poor fouls, it could be the difference in them making the NCAA Tournament or playing in the NIT.
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