I looked it up because I was curious, as I remembered the 2019 team being very shaky in this area (and generally, offensively) early in the season.
2019 team first 6 games FT%: 67%
2021 team first 6 games FT%: 68%
The 2021 team has also shot over 30% more FTs in their first 6 games.
I'm not trying to draw any comparisons between the two teams here, it just seems to be a trend that Beard teams are not great in this area until later in the season. The 2019 team seemed like it could scarcely miss at the line later in the season and in March Madness. I also thought that we were probably overreacting a bit to the amount of FTs missed, mainly because a decent amount of them seemed to come at inopportune times.
Not going to get into the offense right now, other than to say I am of the opinion that Beard probably should rethink his offensive philosophy. I said it in the game thread, but it clearly struggles to put up points without very specific types of players in the lineup. It's not like he has to perform surgery here, Tony Bennett went back to the drawing board on both sides of the ball following that UMBC fiasco in 2018, and it seemed to work out very well for them (**** UVA).
2019 team first 6 games FT%: 67%
2021 team first 6 games FT%: 68%
The 2021 team has also shot over 30% more FTs in their first 6 games.
I'm not trying to draw any comparisons between the two teams here, it just seems to be a trend that Beard teams are not great in this area until later in the season. The 2019 team seemed like it could scarcely miss at the line later in the season and in March Madness. I also thought that we were probably overreacting a bit to the amount of FTs missed, mainly because a decent amount of them seemed to come at inopportune times.
Not going to get into the offense right now, other than to say I am of the opinion that Beard probably should rethink his offensive philosophy. I said it in the game thread, but it clearly struggles to put up points without very specific types of players in the lineup. It's not like he has to perform surgery here, Tony Bennett went back to the drawing board on both sides of the ball following that UMBC fiasco in 2018, and it seemed to work out very well for them (**** UVA).
