Woodling: KU needs to solve free-throw woes
If you’re looking for a rationalization about the lack of a playoff system in NCAA Div. I-A football, dig no deeper than season finales.
In football, a large number of teams actually can end the season with a win and reflect fondly on that victory for months and months to come.
However, very few teams in the NCAA sports with postseason playoffs end their seasons on happy notes. Of the 64 schools that earn berths in basketball, soccer, volleyball etc., 63 always wind up losers.
That’s been the case more often than not for Kansas University men’s basketball over the last three decades. KU hasn’t ended with a win since capturing the NCAA championship in 1988. Prior to that, the Jayhawks hadn’t had a season-ending victory since 1976 — a year they finished 13-13 and didn’t qualify for the postseason.
Memories of recent basketball season finales still haunt KU fans.
Three years ago in Atlanta, Kansas committed a season-high 27 fouls and Maryland converted 26 of 35 free-throw attempts for a 97-88 win in the Final Four semis.
Two years ago in New Orleans, Kansas went flat at the free-throw line, missing 18 of 30 charities, in bowing to Syracuse, 81-78, in the NCAA championship game.
And in March in St. Louis, Georgia Tech denied KU a third straight Final Four berth with a 79-71 overtime triumph fueled by 26-of-34 shooting at the foul stripe.
Do you see the pattern? Can’t miss it, can you? Free-throw shooting.
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Sign up for e-mail updatesWith Georgia Tech coming Saturday to Allen Fieldhouse, I went to the archives for a retrospective on the March meeting in the Edward Jones Dome.
Let’s see … the Jayhawks started in a frozen state, missing 16 of their first 18 shots. Check.
But after trailing by as many as 11 points in the first half, KU forced overtime when J.R. Giddens drilled a long three-pointer with :16.4 showing. Check.
Keith Langford hit two free throws to start the OT, but fouled out on a suspicious whistle — Langford called it “a horrible call” and later was reprimanded — several seconds later, and the Jayhawks scored only three points the rest of the way. Check.
Yet I couldn’t find one sentence about the free throw disparity. No scribe — and I’m as guilty as anybody — wrote that the Yellowjackets had twice as many free throws as the Jayhawks who were 13 of 19 at the foul line.
Sure, there was a lot to write about — there always is in an overtime game — but more should have been written about how Tech’s deadly charity shooting doomed the Jayhawks to their 16th straight season-ending defeat.
Guard Jarrett Jack was the ringleader. Jack had half of the Yellowjackets’ 26 free throws, missing only once in 14 launches from the stripe.
Free throws were the difference, all right … as they often are when two teams of equal caliber step on the floor. Prior to the meeting in St. Louis, Georgia Tech was ranked No. 14 in the polls and Kansas No. 16.
Saturday, Kansas (8-0) will await the tipoff ranked No. 2. Georgia Tech (9-1) is No. 9, but probably should be ranked higher.
Will free-throw shooting be the difference again?
If so, then the Yellowjackets will have the advantage because KU will be without Wayne Simien, the Jayhawks’ best free-throw shooter. Arguably the best shooting big man in school history at the stripe, Simien had made 29 of 33 charities (87.9 percent) before being sidelined because of a thumb injury.
Meanwhile, Simien’s teammates have been shooting a tepid and unfathomable 57.6 percent at the foul line. It’s a cinch Kansas won’t remain No. 2 for long with that kind of lackluster free-throw shooting.
If the Jayhawks are going to pick up the slack with Simien on the shelf indefinitely, the place to start is you-know-where.