Tom Izzo as Frustrated as the Spartan Nation With Team's Lack of Success on the Charity Stripe
As Spartan fans shake their collective heads over the free throw shooting of Tom Izzo’s latest team, don’t think Tom Izzo doesn’t share you frustration. He just finished meeting with the media and it was on the top of his mind. Here is his opening monologue word for word and you can hear his consternation.
Very disappointed, any time you lose a home game especially. Spent a lot of time looking at things. As dumb as it sounds I am coming up with the glass half full instead of half empty. The only reason I am is that when you lose a couple games, especially ones you think you should win, you usually equate it to effort related things. As I go through all the stats and watch all the film I have, our effort related things are top two or three in the league. Top three in field goal percentage defense and top two in three point field goal percentage defense. Our assists to turnovers. Things that normally get sloppy and casual normally when you go with losing. Our rebounding is an effort related stat and we are number one by far, every rebounding stat. Every one. It really comes down to we haven’t shot the ball very well from the three, but even that is in the middle of the pack. We might be the worst free throw shooting team that we’ve ever had. I went through every team and five times we shot in the sixties. 65.8 I think was the worst. 69.8 I think was the highest. Five times we were 74 or higher and probably as a program 71, 72 or 73 % over the years. If we did that we are sitting here with two losses and if we just shot 65% we are sitting here with four losses. If you think I am making too big of a deal about free throw shooting I kind of go by the theory that if there is a problem keeping your mouth shut isn’t the way to fix it. You better address the problem and deal with the fact that it is a problem.
There is no cures from cancer to alcoholism to whatever it is, a cavity in your teeth by ignoring them. We’ve got an issue that we’ve missed. I think we’ve figured out that three games we make one more free throw that we win three of them. That is no excuse. It’s our fault. There is something to feel confident about if we can get this thing turned around. We’ve got some issues. Gavin Schilling is now shooting 65%, he’s moved up. We’ve missed a couple of these games from our best guys missing free throws. Guys that shot 82% last year and seventy sum percent last year some that were shooting 83% this year. Why it’s happened I don’t know. I’ve looked at some of the shots we’ve taken and some of the goals we had. Try to get 60 shots a game and we are gating 58 point sum. That’s a positive. Turnovers have been down, some of the lowest of my career that’s a positive. Our defensive field goal percentage is under 40% and that is a positive.
How our rebounding has been what it is I don’t know. We aren’t a very big team and we have some huge teams in our league this year. If you take out the one Maryland game at home where they out rebounded us by 16, we are probably plus six or seven over the next closest guy and as it is we are probably plus three and a half, four, four and a half or team. We are addressing the problem as best we can. We are working on it.
Someone compared it today to Tiger Woods having the yips in chipping. It’s nothing that is funny. Nothing that we aren’t addressing or not talking about. Sooner or later you’ve got to go there and you’ve got to make the free throws. That is one area we have really tried to address.
The other is our three point shooting. We think we’ve taken some good shots. With the percentage of shots that we’ve taken we feel like we should be shooting a higher percent and we’ve addressed one other area and that is I think we’ve taken some bad shots. Couple of forced shots in key times in the game, late in the game. So these three areas we are working on. We had a practice Sunday, one today and then you play another game. It’s not like you can solve the problems of the world, not going to sit here and act like it isn’t a problem. Not going to sit here and not talk about it and hope it goes away. Players know it. They’ve been told it, they’ve been shown it. We know it, you know it and normally when you lose some games there are a lot worse problems than you missed some free throws. If that gets resolved moderately it is going to be the difference in a lot wins, potentially down the road.
Unfortunately for the Spartans they don’t have much time to fix this. They are 15-8 (6-4) now and look at the schedule and try to find four more wins for this team?
They should win at Northwestern tomorrow. I would expect a loss when they host Ohio State this weekend. UM is so hurt you would think a win, but UM is so well coached and at home I think have to give the Wolverines the edge. That leaves at Illinois (toss up), Minnesota at home that they should win and finally two games on the road at Wisconsin and Indiana that I expect them to lose both and a home tilt with Purdue.
The road is tough for the Spartan. Fixing the free throws would help. It isn’t for lack of effort, but it’s also reality.
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