Your first statement isn't an argument. It's a bull****ter's dismissal.
But, here is a statement from your own article:
"What’s the point of this rambling? It’s a reminder that this team needs to worry about what matters and what they can control the most. It’s also a reminder that no matter how many people try to say otherwise, free throw shooting should be nowhere near the top of the conversation."
That, sir, is what is known as being "hoisted by your own petard."
What they can control the most is free throw shooting. The Gophers' poor performance on other critical metrics during the Nebraska game was symptomatic of the intensity of the defense. I'm pretty confident that DeAndre would have no turnovers over 30 minutes if he were just passing to teammates while dribbling around cones and Andrew wouldn't miss many shots from the field at all if he had sufficient time and space to get in comfortable shooting form.
That, sir, is what is know
Hey man;
I think the message is a little lost in gopher warriors post, but let me show you what he's trying to say (from my translation). I can't defend his choice of words as they do see a bit extreme. Inherently the differences you guys are having is based on Gopher Warrior's use of the "4 Factors of winning a basketball game" which is a data driven performance metric. Where many are arguing based on what they seen in the game on television. Both perspectives are valid.
Let's use the first Nebraska vs Gopher game as an example.
Minnesota: eFG%: .385 TOV%: 21.0% ORB%: 19.5 FT/FGA: .173
Nebraska: eFG%: .452 TOV%: 21.5% ORB%: 10.0 FT/FGA: .333
The Free throw factor (FT/FGA) is a calculation of how often the team gets to the line and how often they make them in comparison to total offense attempts. So in this game out of all the offensive field goal attempts, free throws only made up 17% of the offense.
During that Nebraska game we shot terribly the whole game (.385) and had a terrible Turnover Percentage (21%).
If the gophers simply were able to shoot up to league average, or to our season average we would have been winning the game and the free throws that we missed out on during that game would have been insignificant because we would have already been leading the game / won the game.
So Gopher Warrior used the 2pt FG metric and I am using a 2/3 hybrid (eFG%). And what I interpret him saying in his article is that a huge concern for the gophers on the road is that our Shooting from the field is terrible (like in this game, but in away games in general). Simply finding ways to improve that statistic in away games would in return actually win us those games more often then not.
So if we were to look at things that need addressing; I think you're right. We need to improve on our free throw shooting, but more seriously we need to find the solution as to why our Field Goal percentage is so terrible on the road. We also need to reduce our turn overs because on the road they are extremely high.
I'd like to challenge you with this thought about what is in our control. Sure converting on Free Throw opportunities are in our control as you mentioned. Getting fouled is not in our control. If Nebraska opted not to foul us as much as they did in that game (FTA 19) we would have still lost the game regardless.
What is more in our control is taking care of the ball (reducing our Turnover Percentage) by playing smart and in control. As well as taking better shots that would improve our (eFG%). These are things our team has control over and we can win based on that alone. Relying on opponents to send us to the line is a facet of the game and in some situations can win and lose us a game, but from a trend analysis it is less of an impact as the issues of Shooting / Turn Overs.
I hope I make some sense. Statistical analysis is only one way to look at a trend of this team and none the less if we are in the situation where we have shot terribly and turned the ball over a ton it hurts even more that we are given the opportunity to shoot free throws and we miss them and as a result having an opportunity to still win the game we end up losing.
