University of Akron basketball coach Keith Dambrot is trying the near impossible during a Northeast Ohio winter.
He’s trying to dodge what he calls snowballs.
The Zips (16-7, 8-1 Mid-American Conference) are riding a five-game win streak and, after some early season struggles, appear to be a team on the verge of putting everything together.
But there’s always the danger of getting smacked by a snowball. In this case, that would be the team’s free-throw shooting or lack thereof in recent games. Ironic that one of the team’s controllable weaknesses is proving to be the one that could cause the Zips the most trouble and has cost them dominating wins.
“It’s important. You can play really well and miss free throws,” Dambrot said as the team finished practice Tuesday in preparation for a road game against Western Michigan (10-13, 4-5) tonight. “It’s happened to us twice now. At Central [Michigan], we should have been up by 20 at halftime. We didn’t because we missed free throws. And the last game [against Eastern Michigan], we could have been up 28 at halftime and we didn’t make free throws.”
Against each of those teams they missed 12 and 11 free throws, respectively — shots that had they hit would have made things a bit easier on themselves.
You can go back a little further to see that line woes have grown into a trend in recent games. In the team’s blowout win against Eastern Michigan, it was the only black mark on what could have been proclaimed the team’s best game of the season.
The Zips are shooting just 66 percent from the line this season. That ranks 10th overall in the MAC. In their past three games that mark is a meager 61.3 percent.
“I’m not too sure. I know that when some of the guys get up there, they’re tired and rush through their routines a little bit,” said guard Brian Walsh, when asked about the issue. He leads the team in free-throw shooting at better than 82 percent on the year.
Dambrot offered another explanation.
“The wrong guys get fouled. If the right guys get fouled, our shooting percentage is better,” he said. “Our bigger guys don’t shoot as well as our little guys, and they’re at the line more.”
Indeed, Dambrot usually fields a team replete with guards, players who can hit from the outside with little thought, but with him playing bigger with the likes of starters Zeke Marshall, Nik Cvetinovic and Quincy Diggs, and Demetrius Treadwell coming off the bench, the team gets more shots inside.
But that shouldn’t be an excuse for not being able to convert free throws.
“The problem is that it becomes contagious. It snowballs on you. In sports you try to avoid the snowballs,” Dambrot said.
And for the most part that appears to be what has happened to the Zips.
But what’s the cure?
“One you don’t talk about it; you just practice,” he said. “My theory is the more you talk about things the worse they get, so you just practice and you try to practice under game situations.”
Walsh said it’s a matter of confidence and preparation. Dambrot is getting the preparation in making his players take an extra 100 free throws in recent days. That’s the physical aspect of it. Shooting free throws is as much mental as it is repeating a physical action.
“You just have to get to a place where you’re comfortable with your release, and that’s pretty much it,” Walsh said.
George M. Thomas can be reached at gmthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Zips blog at http://zips.ohio.com. Follow the Zips on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/GeorgeThomasABJ and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sports.abj.
