A surprising reason for Pitt’s woes at the foul line

Tuesday, 15 January 2013 14:21

Written by Ray Fittipaldo

Over the years, Pitt’s big men have dragged down the team’s free-throw shooting percentage. From DeJuan Blair to Aaron Gray and others, post players for the Panthers have traditionally shot a low percentage.

That is not the case this season even though Steven Adams is doing his best to continue that tradition. Even though Adams is shooting an awful 30 percent from the line, Dante Taylor, JJ Moore and Talib Zanna pick up his slack. Moore is shooting a team-best 84.6 percent from the line; Zanna 71 percent and Taylor 62.5 percent. Even with Adams’ 30 percent factored in those four are shooting a combined 67 percent. That is more than acceptable for a quartet of post players.

The guards and small forwards have been letting the team down and are the main reason the Panthers are shooting 67 percent from the foul line. They are shooting a combined 60.3 percent.

Here is the list of players with their free-throw percentage this season compared to last:

Player   this season         last season

Woodall  73 percent        81 percent

Patterson 69 percent     77 percent

Robinson 76 percent      NA

Wright 47 percent          83 percent

Zeigler 54 percent            49.5 percent

Johnson 71 percent        NA

Comments (1)

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tigerpaul, January 15, 2013 - 09:51 PM

Pitt has been outscored by 28 points at the foul line through 4 BE games. Even more troubling is that opponents have attempted 23 more free throws. This reinforces that we are not getting to the foul-line enough.

The half-court offense is not generating enough points. This is a wild idea that Dixon won't try but I think he should press more and try to speed up the tempo of the game. Or start rebounding better so we can push the ball and get more hoops in transition. As things stand, if Pitt needs to get most of its points out of the half-court, then it will be a long season.

Adams has to start getting more touches and more shots. He may miss some shots but he's athletic enough to get some putbacks if he puts up more shots.

+0