The Mikan Drill "Highlighting Gonzaga’s impressive ability to get to the foul line"

[ZagNative]

I haven't studied it yet, but this looks like another interesting offering from The Mikan Drill website.

I consider Gonzaga’s free throw rate to field goal attempts to be its most impressive quality of a pretty successful 2009-2010 season. They ranked 7th in the country at 49.3% although their 66.4% success rate from the line shows this might not have been beneficial to Gonzaga.

However, the success rate at the line is much easier to fix than a team that is not aggressive and not able to get to the foul line. There is hope that Elias Harris (67.5%), Robert Sacre (62.9%), Demetri Goodson (56.1%) and others will raise their free throw percentage while getting to the line at the same rate. I would rather have the problem of not making foul shots than not being aggressive enough to get to the lane.

Two questions came to mind when I saw this stat: How did they do it last year and is it sustainable this year? Let’s find out the answers to both.

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

This team is built to get to the foul line. It has a big, physical front court and athletic wings that should have a huge edge in rebounding margin over the course of the season. Those offensive rebounds often become "and-one" opportunities because the defense can't rotate in time to stop the second shooter. The guards, particularly Steven Gray, are quick and aggressive about getting to the rim. The frontcourt has guys who are athletic enough to attack the basket off of the dribble. The team has a lot of depth, particularly on the frontcourt, so the bigs can attack the basket without worrying too much about offensive fouls. There are front court players, like K.O. and Harris, who can draw defenders away from the basket so that Gonzaga's taller guards can post up smaller defenders.

This team should win a lot of games by putting other teams in foul trouble. If they can convert on those free throws, they should win even more.