With Game on the Line, Many Are Missing the Point

Poor Foul Shooting Can Doom a Team's Tournament Hopes

After he missed a free throw last weekend that likely would have propelled Xavier to the biggest upset of this NCAA tournament, Justin Cage suffered two realizations. First, he looked up at the scoreboard at the end of overtime and saw that his college career officially had ended with a 78-71 loss to Ohio State in the second round. He walked off the court with a towel wrapped around his head, trying not to cry.

Cage said his next thought, a few minutes later in the locker room, registered as even more painful: With one wayward 15-foot shot, he had adopted a lifelong burden.

"It hit me like a ton of bricks," Cage said Tuesday night. "I was like, 'Man, nobody is ever going to forget that one miss.' "

In the NCAA tournament, basketball's most basic shot often becomes the difference between a win or a loss, between infamy or renown. Coaches, players and shooting experts spend hundreds of hours obsessing over the technical and mental minutiae of a simple set shot. They know clutch free throw shooting will factor heavily in the round of 16, which begins with four games tonight.

As it often does, free throw shooting largely defined the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Cage missed his shot with nine seconds left, and Ohio State capitalized with a game-tying three-pointer and then an overtime rally. Memphis Coach John Calipari called a sports psychologist to solicit advice for his woeful free throw-shooting team. Tennessee guard Chris Lofton made six consecutive last-minute free throws to preserve a second-round win over Virginia by relying on a technique, he said, that "involves deep breathing."

"They say free throws are the most simple shots, but when you think about it, they get pretty complicated," said Lofton, whose Volunteers play Ohio State tonight. "You're in the spotlight by yourself. You either make it or miss it. There's no in-between. There's nowhere to hide."

Sitting in his apartment in Seal Beach, Calif., on Saturday, Tom Amberry, 84, watched one missed free throw after another until he flicked away from the NCAA tournament television coverage in disgust. A former surgeon, Amberry dedicated his retirement to proving his declaration that anybody with a goal and an arm could become a superb free throw shooter. He went to a local gym each day and shot at the same basket, sometimes for six hours. In 1993, he earned mention in the Guinness Book of World Records for making 2,750 consecutive shots in one day. At age 71. With shingles.

That feat has qualified Amberry to travel the West Coast as a free throw shooting consultant for several NBA players and college teams. And what he has learned on the road has shocked him.

"Nobody listens, because nobody is interested in free throw shooting," Amberry said. "Players like dunks and three-point shots, and they just don't get it. Free throws might be boring, but they're the most important shots you'll ever take."

A study commissioned by the National Basketball Coaches Association concluded that free throws account for 25 percent of points scored in Division I men's basketball games. The study, which tracked games over a 10-year span, showed that winning teams score 67 percent of their points in the final minute from the free throw line.

Still, Division I players made only 69 percent of their free throws this season -- about 2 percent better than the national average in high school games.

"Welcome to the free throw epidemic," said Ed Palubinskas, a Baton Rouge shooting coach who has worked privately with Shaquille O'Neal. "This is the one area where, over the last 10 years, players have actually gotten worse, and it's because they don't work on it. They're ignoring free throws, and they're throwing away games."