Foul Shooting: A Prevalent Difficulty in College Basketball

Thursday, November 19 2009

It's called the charity stripe for a reason.

Obviously, the points are not handed out-as charity might imply-at the foul line, but the concept is that hitting an unobstructed shot from 15 feet away should be a "gimme" for anyone. However, every college basketball fan knows foul shooting is simply not as easy as it should be for way too many players.

Syracuse's Arinze Onuaku has a better chance of not hitting water when he falls out of a boat than of draining a foul shot. Onuaku, who connected on 29.8 percent of his free throws in 2008-09, is the archetype of a terrible foul shooter, but teammate Rick Jackson (48.1), Delvon Roe (45.5), and Dallas Lauderdale (45.8) are not many steps behind.

Forget the game's worst, though. Instead, examine last year's top 100 foul shooters on ESPN.com and you'll notice that only 91 Division I basketball players converted more than 70 percent of their foul shots.

Do the math: 347 teams multiplied by eight (the average...
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