The Free Throw: Not so free

Fifteen feet.

It’s the same anywhere, anytime. It’s the same in a back yard or in a gym. It’s the same alone or in front of thousands of people. It’s 15 feet. No matter the situation, a free throw is a free throw. They are the same. Except when they’re not.

Not all free throws are created equal. There are constants — the ball, the rim, the distance — but the mental aspect is always changing.

Free throws have a cruel simplicity. Nobody can try to block them — they are straight on and relatively close. Some people use that to their advantage, but when it becomes mental, free throws become a much more difficult shot. The problem is, they are always mental.

“You’ve kind of got to get out of your way mentally,” said Utah State men’s basketball coach Tim Duryea.

Some athletes will get out of their own way by tuning everything else out.

“I take out the spectators around me and focus on the rim,” said sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu, who shot 80 percent from the free-throw line last season.

Others focus on their routine.

“I’ve been doing it ever since I started playing,” said junior wing Jalen Moore, who shot 74 percent from the line last season. “Three dribbles, spin the ball, take your time and knock it in.”

Simple. Focus, get a routine, “knock it in.” But even the most casual of basketball fans knows that the charity stripe is not always so charitable.

There are always those players who dread the line and teams that plan around fouling that player. For some players, that free throw line may as well be a half-court shot.

“I see guys that shoot 40 percent or something and I’m like, that’s mental,” Moore said. “Some guys could have good form and still can’t make them.”

There are ways to treat it. Though the mental aspect is huge, the form still has to be there.

The physical side is where both Duryea and USU women’s basketball coach Jerry Finkbeiner start.

They coach footwork, release, simplicity.

Finkbeiner said if he needs to work on free throws with one of his players he starts with footwork. He makes sure they are squared and actually using their legs. He then makes sure they are not using their upper body too much, essentially keeping what is going on above the waist from ruining the shot. He will then evaluate the follow-through. All of this while deliberately focusing on what the body, not the mind, is doing.

“We try to make it objective and educational and stay away from emotional and mental side of it,” Finkbeiner said.

Duryea will focus on making sure a routine and fluid motion is there if he needs to work on free throws. He wants his players to eliminate wasted motion and focus on a simple, smooth and ultimately repeatable shot.

“It’s all about being able to do something not only one time, but ten times in a row, 100 times in a row,” he said.

The coaches will also try to simulate high pressure situations in practice. They will impose situations like sprints for missed free throws or changing where in practice there will be shots.

But nothing can quite compensate for late game, high pressure situations with thousands of eyes hungrily watching a well-lit player standing 15 feet away from a crucial point.

Nakkasoglu said that she and her teammates are well aware of those crucial situations.

“I think everyone knows by now it’s D1 basketball. You need to learn to do that,” she said.

Some players even relish it.

“I love when you go up there and they are loud and you knock in both free throws and they quiet,” Moore said. “It makes it more fun.”

Both Duryea and Finkbeiner said that in those late game situations, they don’t talk about free throws. They just let their players go out and shoot, then they plan for after the shot.

Nobody doubts how critical free throws are or how often games can come down to them.

“A lot of times games will come down to one point, two points and you will look at your free-throw stats and you’re like, ‘If you would have made three more free-throws you would have won the game,'” Moore said.

Any given USU basketball player has shot thousands of free throws in their lives at varying levels. But none have shot 100 percent. Yes, physically free-throws are all the same, but they are the most uncertain certainty in the sport.