WVU struggles at stripe must improve
West Virginia’s 77-76 overtime loss to Texas Tech culminated the team’s early season struggles at the free throw line.
The Mountaineers were just 13/24 from the line against Texas Tech and were only 6/12 in overtime which proved critical down the stretch and was the difference in the game.
“We haven’t shot it well at the free throw line all year,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said.
Free throws also cost West Virginia in its only other loss to Temple earlier this season as the team shot just 61.1% from the line.
West Virginia’s ongoing struggles at the free throw line have been present early on this season but have been overshadowed by the team’s margin of victory over its opponents.
The Mountaineers currently leads the nation in margin of victory and defeated their opponents by an average of 33 points during their eight-game win streak.
West Virginia has had solid performances at the line, shooting 77% against Oklahoma State and 84.6% against Virginia but have had some ugly displays at the line including the Texas Tech game and the Radford game when the team shot just 48% from the line. The key is developing consistency.
Free throws is an area the Mountaineers must improve on as they continue going their conference play stretch.
West Virginia may have been able to escape its free throw woes during its eight-game win streak with large margins of victory but in any tight game free throws could decide a team’s fate, especially in the Big 12 and that showed against Texas Tech.
The competition in the Big 12 is fierce this year and will continue to heat up. Six teams from the Big 12 have at least 12 wins and no more than two losses so far and there’s only two teams in the conference that have a record of .500 or below. Any of these conference games could be decided at the free throw line.
Free throws is one of those areas that teams can control throughout the course of a game and can be improved lots of with practice and reps, something Huggins wants to see more out of his players.
“I would think that if you missed free throw after free throw it would bother you to the point where you would go in and work your tail off to try to fix it,” Huggins said.
Looking ahead to West Virginia’s next two conference matchups, the Mountaineers will have the home court advantage against TCU this Saturday and Baylor on Tuesday.
Both TCU and West Virginia rank near the bottom in free throw percentage so it’ll be critical for the Mountaineers to take advantage of any missed free throws by the Horned Frogs and to turn them into points.
West Virginia, Baylor and TCU all rank in the top 30 in margin of victory. A victory against a tenacious TCU team that nearly upset Kansas would be the win to get the Mountaineers back on track following their loss to Texas Tech.
This would then set up a showdown with Baylor in Morgantown on Tuesday night. The Bears will most likely take over the top spot in the rankings after Butler upset previously top ranked Villanova on Wednesday night.
If the Mountaineers want to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament this season, a victory against Baylor would help set them up for that but no deep run will be possible unless West Virginia improves at the free throw line here in conference play.