Improving free throws

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25mkg

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Free throws.

Here is a way they can immediately raise their percentage 10 points or more:

Leave the shooter alone. No need to slap hands on every shot; made or missed.

Let them focus on the rim and mechanics.

It's like when you go to a practice green in golf. You lay out 5 balls and
hit one after another. You make subtle adjustments in speed and line and before you know it,
you are holing them out. No interruptions, just subtle adjustments.

Same goes for free throws. Tiny, uninterrupted, changes (or repetition if a make) to the shot and they will make more.

I have seen this happen in actual experience.
 

This has been around for a long time.
**********************************************************************************

Visualization is an often-taught mental rehearsal technique in sports. It is an extremely powerful tool and numerous studies have been done to test this. You may have heard of this basketball study or a different one with similar results.

A study conducted by Dr. Biasiotto (spelling corrected 8/4/14) at the University of Chicago was done where he split people into three groups and tested each group on how many free throws they could make.
After this, he had the first group practice free throws every day for an hour.

The second group just visualized themselves making free throws.

The third group did nothing.
After 30 days, he tested them again.
The first group improved by 24%.

The second group improved by 23% without touching a basketball!!!!

The third group did not improve which was expected.

Mental Rehearsal & Psychology Aspects of Basketball - Visualization

www.breakthroughbasketball.com www.breakthroughbasketball.com
 

25mkg said:
Free throws.

Here is a way they can immediately raise their percentage 10 points or more:

Leave the shooter alone. No need to slap hands on every shot; made or missed.

Let them focus on the rim and mechanics.

It's like when you go to a practice green in golf. You lay out 5 balls and
hit one after another. You make subtle adjustments in speed and line and before you know it,
you are holing them out. No interruptions, just subtle adjustments.

Same goes for free throws. Tiny, uninterrupted, changes (or repetition if a make) to the shot and they will make more.

I have seen this happen in actual experience.
Click to expand...
So...what you're saying is that they should practice.

I'd say give it a chance.
 





GopherJack said:
I wonder, were these guys this bad in high school? (like, are we just recruiting bad high school free-throw shooters?) Or do we make them worse?
Click to expand...
Johnson seemed to recruit a some bad free throw shooters (Fox, Payne)....in the case of the current team I think some of it is small sample size and a brutal game at the line for a couple guys against Green Bay.

Willis shot 72% from the line last year. Currently sitting at 36% but have to think he hasn't forgotten how to shoot free throws and his percentage will go up a lot over the course of the season.

Similar for Reynolds and Viahola, both were in the 60% range (67% for Reynolds, 64% for Viahola) last year. Not great but not a massive liability at those percentages.
 





Bayfield Gopher said:
This has been around for a long time.
**********************************************************************************

Visualization is an often-taught mental rehearsal technique in sports. It is an extremely powerful tool and numerous studies have been done to test this. You may have heard of this basketball study or a different one with similar results.

A study conducted by Dr. Biasiotto (spelling corrected 8/4/14) at the University of Chicago was done where he split people into three groups and tested each group on how many free throws they could make.
After this, he had the first group practice free throws every day for an hour.

The second group just visualized themselves making free throws.

The third group did nothing.
After 30 days, he tested them again.
The first group improved by 24%.

The second group improved by 23% without touching a basketball!!!!

The third group did not improve which was expected.

Mental Rehearsal & Psychology Aspects of Basketball - Visualization

www.breakthroughbasketball.com www.breakthroughbasketball.com
Click to expand...
I had a teammate of mine study visualization during free throws as his senior project in high school. Before every free throw his senior year he visualized making the free throw before shooting it. I wish I remember if it made any difference for him, but I don't recall.
 


Ski-U-Ham said:
I had a teammate of mine study visualization during free throws as his senior project in high school. Before every free throw his senior year he visualized making the free throw before shooting it. I wish I remember if it made any difference for him, but I don't recall.
Click to expand...
Cool story, but the ending needs a punch up.
 





Bayfield Gopher said:
This has been around for a long time.
**********************************************************************************

Visualization is an often-taught mental rehearsal technique in sports. It is an extremely powerful tool and numerous studies have been done to test this. You may have heard of this basketball study or a different one with similar results.

A study conducted by Dr. Biasiotto (spelling corrected 8/4/14) at the University of Chicago was done where he split people into three groups and tested each group on how many free throws they could make.
After this, he had the first group practice free throws every day for an hour.

The second group just visualized themselves making free throws.

The third group did nothing.
After 30 days, he tested them again.
The first group improved by 24%.

The second group improved by 23% without touching a basketball!!!!

The third group did not improve which was expected.

Mental Rehearsal & Psychology Aspects of Basketball - Visualization

www.breakthroughbasketball.com www.breakthroughbasketball.com
Click to expand...
JJ McCarthy's been doing a lot of visualizing before the games and his accuracy has impr....never mind.
 


25mkg said:
Free throws.

Here is a way they can immediately raise their percentage 10 points or more:

Leave the shooter alone. No need to slap hands on every shot; made or missed.

Let them focus on the rim and mechanics.

It's like when you go to a practice green in golf. You lay out 5 balls and
hit one after another. You make subtle adjustments in speed and line and before you know it,
you are holing them out. No interruptions, just subtle adjustments.

Same goes for free throws. Tiny, uninterrupted, changes (or repetition if a make) to the shot and they will make more.

I have seen this happen in actual experience.
Click to expand...
Confiscate smart-phones…the proven diminisher of concentration abilities.
 




I just spent an hour visualizing myself marrying Sofia Vergara.

giphy.gif
 

I watched the UWGB game and it was scary that some of the missed FT's late in that game were shot with two hands around the throat. Tyson, who is a great shooter, shot a couple that grazed front rim and Willis and Vaihala clearly didn't want to be at the line. That was done against a terrible team at home with about 2000 people watching.......
My point is that this doesn't bode well for games later in the season when they are trying to shoot them at Mackey or Assembly Hall with 20,000 fans yelling at them.....
 


cheeseheadgophfan said:
I watched the UWGB game and it was scary that some of the missed FT's late in that game were shot with two hands around the throat. Tyson, who is a great shooter, shot a couple that grazed front rim and Willis and Vaihala clearly didn't want to be at the line. That was done against a terrible team at home with about 2000 people watching.......
My point is that this doesn't bode well for games later in the season when they are trying to shoot them at Mackey or Assembly Hall with 20,000 fans yelling at them.....
Click to expand...
Alright grab a bunch of students. Beers start at normal price. Each missed free throw takes 5 cents off and the player who missed has to run a lap. How's that for dealing with a rowdy crowd.
 

In the cobwebs of my memory, Richard's teams were doing terribly at the line, and he said he went to a free-throw shooting clinic that totally changed the way he approached teaching that skill. From there, his teams did much better. Does anyone else remember that line? What clinic, what was the secret?
 


Full Speed Ahead said:
In the cobwebs of my memory, Richard's teams were doing terribly at the line, and he said he went to a free-throw shooting clinic that totally changed the way he approached teaching that skill. From there, his teams did much better. Does anyone else remember that line? What clinic, what was the secret?
Click to expand...
If there was ONE secret or ONE specific technique that guaranteed an improvement in free throw shooting for every team and every player, you know that every coach in the world would be teaching and practicing it. Of course, all coaches also know that teaching and practicing something doesn't always guarantee that every player will perform it exactly right every time during games.

The truth is that there can be 100 different issues for 100 different players at any given point in time when it comes to shooting free throws. The idea that one size fits all is ridiculous. It's frustrating to watch and in most cases, just as frustrating to fix.

Here is another thing that affected me when I was young. The idea of practicing something with the big game on the line and if you fail you lose. For me, there was no way to practice that until the actual moment occurred. "Do it right or you don't play this week or we all run extra sprints" was not the same in my mind as "Do it right or we lose this game right now.". There was absolutely nothing that my coach could replicate in practice that was the same as "You have one shot to get it right, right now, or we lose this game right now".

I was a mental mess as a player back in my early years! :)
 


Chico Gopher said:
If there was ONE secret or ONE specific technique that guaranteed an improvement in free throw shooting for every team and every player, you know that every coach in the world would be teaching and practicing it. Of course, all coaches also know that teaching and practicing something doesn't always guarantee that every player will perform it exactly right every time during games.

The truth is that there can be 100 different issues for 100 different players at any given point in time when it comes to shooting free throws. The idea that one size fits all is ridiculous. It's frustrating to watch and in most cases, just as frustrating to fix.

Here is another thing that affected me when I was young. The idea of practicing something with the big game on the line and if you fail you lose. For me, there was no way to practice that until the actual moment occurred. "Do it right or you don't play this week or we all run extra sprints" was not the same in my mind as "Do it right or we lose this game right now.". There was absolutely nothing that my coach could replicate in practice that was the same as "You have one shot to get it right, right now, or we lose this game right now".

I was a mental mess as a player back in my early years! :)
Click to expand...
I never played basketball, but a few years back I randomly grabbed a basketball I hadn’t touched in about five years, and went to an outdoor city park with a double rim and randomly shot 100 free throws. I ended up dropping in 67. Now if a kid who lives eats and sleeps with a basketball in his hands, can’t do better than that they should be giving back the NIL money they’re receiving.
 

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