It has been almost two years since John Calipari was proven wrong and shown that free throws do indeed matter, as his Memphis Tigers missed three in the final 16 seconds to allow Kansas to win the national title. (A game that Kansas had unknowingly already won).
Texas Tigers? Longhorns Channeling Their Inner Memphis
↵Now, on the cusp of their match-up with the top-ranked Jayhawks, the Texas Longhorns find themselves held back by the same kryptonite as the 2008 Tigers: those silly free throws.
↵Just three weeks ago the Longhorns were on top of the world. They had star power in Damion James, an inside force in Dexter Pittman, and a sensational freshman in Avery Bradley. As our own Nick Fasulo explained, they were also scary deep:
↵↵The deepest team in the country, 11 Longhorn players sees 10 or more minutes a game, meaning each position has a reliable back-up in the event of an unforeseen injury. Hey, we know Mack Brown didn’t have that luxury.
↵↵At that point the Longhorns were undefeated.
↵So what have they done since? Just lose four of six games.
↵They still have the star power, the inside force, and the sensational freshman; the trouble is none of them can shoot free throws.
↵As a team the Longhorns are shooting a junior high-esqué 61 percent from the line. Individually James is shooting 65 percent, Pittman 53 percent, and Bradley a pathetic 47 percent.
↵As a team, in their losses Texas has gone 9-22, 9-16, 19-31, and 10-27 from the line respectively. I’ll spare you all the search for the calculator and tell you that that is a combined 49 percent. Yuck!
↵At the beginning of the season tonight’s match-up was tagged the game of the year but it will likely have the same result as the 2008 National Championship Game unless the Longhorns start converting from the free throw stripe.
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