Double digit freaking leads....

L

Lost_In_Ohio

500+ Posts
Are apparently the worst thing that this team can do. Whenever we get up by at least ten, it dwindles and then we lose the damn game. It never fails. Seems like coaching to me. Let's hope they can pull this one out in Boulder. We shouldn't leave the gym Monday......FREE THROWS all practice long!!!!
 
Too many stretches where the team disappears. Basketball is a game of runs, but it just seems like everyone on the team gets complacent or something, especially on D.
 
On the tying bucket in regulation it was like Moses parted the Red Sea and nobody touched him. Higgins played a great game and is certainly part of this latest giving up a big lead.

I was stunned in the last 1+ minute of OT with a 9-point lead - it seems to me that the only thing you don't want to give up are 3 pointers, or fouls...yet we guarded close enough that when Colo guy drives the basket we foul them for the 3-point play.

At that stage you can give up 4 2-pointers, but 3 3-pointers and your screwed. Hopefully that's a mistake that will be corrected.

Hook'em!!!
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My 12-yr. old daughter's team shoots better free-throws than the Horns do! I don't understand why the team isn't at least a 75% free-throw shooting team. I'm sure Damion was sweating bullets after those 2 bricks.
 
And the Horns should be one of those teams. They've gotten worse in last 2 years. I just don't understand it. As another poster said in another thread, do your Rick Barry imitation for crying out loud if you have to.
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Its tough to protect a double digit lead when your team is terrible at defending the 3, and your big men are soft.

My daughter and I, for the last several games, have started to make bets as to how soon we will blow the lead. I'm a little a bit more optimistic than my daughter - in the mean time, she's getting richer.

Even when we win its tough to watch - for me anyway.
 
maybe 75% is a lofty goal, but not ridiculous given how well Texas recruits. What IS ridiculous is being 238th in the country in FT shooting, which Texas is. No reason at all for that.

And yes, I'm just as disappointed in OU for their 195th rank. They could be this year's Memphis, losing a title due to an inability to make free throws.
 
I don't see Texas as a poor free throw shooting team --- as much as that is a valid viewpoint.

I see them as a team that has improved their free throw shooting immensely. People whine about how badly these guys shoot free throws, but no one comments on the astronomical levels of improvement both Dexter Pittman and Gary Johnson have made since their under 50% days in high school. Varez Ward has done a great job at the line since Big 12 play started. Damion James is much better than last year. You can see he emphasizes getting relaxed at the line before he attempts his shots now, and it's made a world of a difference. Obviously it didn't help today (hell, I didn't think that second shot was going to have any chance of going in after how the first one looked), but he's improved quite a bit from last season. For all of the decline in Atchley's performance, he's doing better from the line, too.

Mason has struggled in all kinds of ways this year, including the free throw line. I can't believe his 3 point shooting has complete disappeared.

Balbay was a known quantity in terms of his free throw shooting being abysmal, and he's done nothing to disappoint. Abrams doesn't have the ability to regularly draw fouls. Clint Chapman seems to see the inside of the basket as his version of kryptonite, whether from the field or the foul line.

Overall, though, the team has actually been much better from the free thrown line than I anticipated at the beginning of the year, mostly due to the strides Johnson, Pittman, James, Atchley, and Ward have made. I don't completely understand why they don't get more kudos on this board for the improvements they've made, rather than the constant ***** fest for why they aren't better.
 
Oh, and when you're a team that struggles to score, with a paucity of scorers on the team, no lead is going to be safe. They're going to have to grind out wins. That's all there is to it. I'm just glad to see them pull out a close one after the last 3 losses.
 
I'd hire a Zen archer to teach a technique that may pull some shots out when under a lot of pressure. It's got to be all mental at this level and in the NBA.
 
Really, TexasPelea? Did you notice how AJ Abrams lost the game to Wisconsin last year by missing free throws? Did you watch DJ Augustin air ball a late free throw against Miami in the NCAA tournament? How about Brian Boddicker's infamous misses in front of his family at Iowa State to lose that one?

It's frustrating as a fan, but it happens. I was as pissed about it as anyone, but Damion James is a flawed player in some ways who nonetheless busts his butt every game. I'm just glad he's worked so much on his free throw shooting over last year that it's improved as much as it has.

I continue to believe there are some glass half full aspects to this team that people are willingly ignoring because they are so frustrating to watch this year --- yesterday's win included.
 
you can't teach free throw shooting. it's there or it ain't.

if you recruit poor FT shooters, you get a poor FT shooting team.
 
Endust - You can certainly teach FT shooting. It just takes concentration and practice. The key is to have a routine and never waiver from it. But you can absolutely teach FT shooting. The only player I have ever seen that did not respond to teaching was Shaq and we are all painfully aware of his FT shooting trials and tribulations.
 
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