Free throw shooting could be the demise of this Kentucky basketball team

This year’s Kentucky basketball team has struggled with shooting from the charity stripe. Can they fix it?

This year’s Kentucky basketball team has struggled with its identity. There is no clear-cut leader on the team. Three-point shooting is not part of this team’s repertoire. John Calipari has openly criticized his team’s toughness. But, more glaring than all those faults may be this team’s inability to make free throws.

The Kentucky basketball team has no problem getting to the charity stripe. The Wildcats have shown themselves to be a poor-shooting team from beyond the arc, therefore they’re going to get the majority of their buckets in the paint. Driving to the basket often results in getting fouled and heading to the line. UK is 8th in the nation with 460 attempts on the season. That’s almost 26 times per game.

Unfortunately, the Wildcats rank 269th in free throw percentage. Wow! On the season, the Kentucky basketball team is shooting 67.8% from the foul line. With this team being so dependent on its ability to score down low, that percentage is not going to cut it.

The past 5 games…

Take a look at the percentages from the Wildcats’ last 5 games. LSU (53.8%), Tennessee (62.5%), Texas A&M (64.7%), Vanderbilt (67.6%) and South Carolina (63.9%). Notice a trend? Over the last 5 games, the Kentucky basketball team has shot worse than their already atrocious average of 67.8%.

Now, I’m a realist. I know it’s unlikely for team full of freshmen to knock down 85-plus percent of their foul shots. However, when Nick Richards is hitting 75% from the line, I don’t think it’s too much to expect your lead guard to make better than 62%. That’s right, Hamidou Diallo, whose game is built around driving to the bucket shoots, has missed 32 of his 84 free throw attempts.

Kevin Knox commented on the misses from the foul line becoming contagious via CoachCal.com:

"“Free throws are all mental. You just gotta get to the line, just tell yourself you’re going to make it and, like I said, the first half was all quiet. They weren’t really loud. The next thing you know in the second half they kind of got into it. That kind of helped with them with the free throws because we started missing them. But free throws are all mental. I know we’ll work on it in practice and we’ll knock them down next game.”"

As was outlined earlier, poor free throw shooting was not just a problem against the Gamecocks. It’s been an epidemic all season for the Kentucky basketball team, and Coach Cal better get a handle on it going forward before it becomes incurable.