The Florida Gators were one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the country last season. The Gators finished the season with a 64.3% average from the foul line. It was a statistic that cost Florida several games last season and brought the team’s confidence level at the line to an all-time low. John Egbunu, Kasey Hill, Justin Leon, and Kevarrius Hayes all had free-throw percentages below 55.0%.
Florida is only two games into the 2016-17 season, but at this point, it looks like the team has made great strides in that area. The Gators are shooting 78.6% from the foul line, which is the second-best percentage in the SEC, only behind 81.0% from LSU.
“Knock on wood we continue to shoot it this way,” said head coach Mike White. “We have in practice, so I just hope we continue to see that carry over. I think you can see it in our body language, a little bit more confident at the foul line. Kasey [Hill] I believe went 4-of-6 if I’m not mistaken, and a couple of his misses were right there as well. John Egbunu is a much improved free-throw shooter to this point. It’s a big factor for us. It kept us out of the NCAA Tournament last year, single-handedly. Hopefully this year we continue shooting like this.”
The major improvements in free-throw shooting for the Gators to this point is not the coincidence. It was one of the main focuses in the offseason and continues to be a major focus in practices, because of the major impact it had last season. “We talk a lot about it being mental and physical,” White said. “From a physical standpoint, we as a staff and guys were open minded enough to change, tweak if you will, a couple guys’ shots in terms of their technique. So there’s the physical side to it. And then the mental side, we’ve seen a sports psychologist. We had a guy come in and meet with a few of our guys, so it’s put them in a pretty good place.”
A sports psychologist might seem a bit extreme, but White thought it was just what his guys needed to turn things around. As it turns out, that might have been what was missing all along. Free-throws are even more mental than physical. It is a shot that players at the Division-I level should make almost every time, but that all changes when the game is on the line and there are fans in the stands.
White considered bringing a sports psychologist in last season but decided against it with so much uncertainty in the how the players would react to it. “I was approached by a couple people mid-to-late last season and I didn’t want it to become more mental than it already was,” he said. “We were struggling so bad at the foul line. We tried to infuse confidence in our guys in different ways, through trial and error, a bunch of error there. Tons of reps in practice, of course. We tried to shoot a bunch of free-throws under duress, while winded, putting team accountability pressure on our guys. It helped to a certain extent, but I guess late in the year it started going back.”
Not only did the players embrace sports psychology, they immersed themselves in it and believed in it. Hill, Egbunu, and Leon spent the most time with the psychologist learning new techniques to keep them calm and confident at the line. All three of them are now shooting above 70.0% from the line after two games. Leon has only had two free-throw attempts so far, but he made both of them.
“He gave me a lot of different breathing patterns at certain points throughout the day that probably I might be too amped and need to get down,” said Leon. “So that’s really been working for me.”
White is excited to continue working with the sports psychologist this season and in seasons to come. “I don’t think our guy only helped us at the foul line,” he said. “I think that if you can train your mind, use different methods to understand how to stay in that place – whatever that place is for you or whatever that trigger word is for you to get you to that place or get you back into that place of calm, of confident, those type things – I think can help you with the rest of your game as well. It’s something that we’ll continue to pursue in the future and continue to educate ourselves about.”