Calipari’s teams typically struggle with free throw shooting
November 6, 2013
By Nick Gray | Basketball beat writer
Widely known as one of the best coaches in college basketball, John Calipari’s teams have struggled in one area – free throws.
Free throw shooting has been his teams’ Achilles heel since his days at the University of Memphis, as only two teams of Calipari’s in the past 10 years have shot better than 70 percent from the free throw line.
That pair of teams, from the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons, came at UK, with the national championship team in 2011-12 shooting the best percentage for a Calipari team in a decade.
Calipari’s two best teams at Memphis ranked outside of the top 300 teams in free throw percentage.
That includes Memphis’ 2007-08 team, who led Kansas 60-51 with 2:12 left in the national championship game, but failed to hold onto the lead after their two best players and free throw shooters, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose, missed four of five free throws in the final two minutes.
In all, the team shot 61.4 percent for the season. Last season, the Cats struggled with free throw shooting in losses.
UK shot 11-for-23 from the line against the University of Louisville in a three-point loss. The Cats hit six-of-11 free throws in a four-point loss at the University of Alabama and made nine-of-18 free throws in a nine-point loss against Baylor University.
From that roster returns four players who played 23 games or more last season.
Those four players – sophomore forwards Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress, senior guard Jarrod Polson and senior forward Jon Hood – shot a combined 58.7 percent last season.
Cauley-Stein’s 37.2 percent free throw percentage was the lowest on the team, and his zero-for-four effort from the line in the Louisville game during the Cats’ attempted comeback proved costly in the three-point victory for the Cardinals.
With the regular season approaching, the Cats have shown signs of struggling at the free throw line like Calipari teams of the past.
UK shot 11-of-22 from the free throw line in the Cats’ first exhibition game against Transylvania University and followed with an 18-for-25 performance (72 percent) on Monday against the University of Montevallo.
Poythress said every player on the team shot 50 free throws at practice on Saturday and Sunday after the performance last Friday.
But he has faith that the trend of free throws in big games will be pushed aside.
“In big time situations, when we need to make (free throws), we’ll make them,” Poythress said.
