Boise State coach Leon Rice didn’t beat around the bush after a 86-82 overtime loss to Saint Louis on Tuesday night, addressing what cost his team the game right at the start of his postgame press conference.
“We all know the elephant in the room is the free throw line,” Rice said.
Boise State went a putrid 12 of 26 from the foul line in the four-point loss.
“It’s such a fine line when you are playing good teams,” Rice said. “In these close games against good teams, you have to be able to make those.”
The 46.2 percent mark at the foul line was the worst in 12 years under coach Leon Rice when the Broncos attempted at least 25 free throws in a game.
Saint Louis, meanwhile, made 30 of 34 shots from the charity stripe.
“The game lived up to the hype as far as two good teams, but the thing you can’t overcome is one team made 30 free throws and the other team made 12,” Rice said. “That’s really, really hard to overcome, and I don’t know how many of those were 1 and 1s too.
“You’re leaving at least (16) points on the board against a good team – and we almost overcame it.”
But it wasn’t just a one-game issue for the Broncos. Free throw shooting has been a big problem all season. The Broncos entered the game ranked 346th of 358 Division I teams at just 59.3 percent from the line.
That number actually somehow got worse on Tuesday – and it cost the Broncos a game in the process.
It was just the 11th time since Rice arrived in Boise that the Broncos shot less than 50 percent from the line – but it’s already the third time this year it’s happened. The Broncos are 2-9 when that’s happened, and both wins came earlier this year against Temple and Ole Miss.
“Right now we’re just missing,” senior Abu Kigab said. “It’s part of the game and we just have to keep shooting them. … It happens. Some of the best teams, they lose because they are missing free throws uncharacteristically, but I have faith we’ll make them.”
Believe it or not this wasn’t Boise State’s worst outing from the line this season. The Broncos went just 6 of 14 (42.9 percent) in the win over Temple in the Charleston Classic on Nov. 19.
The Broncos were 10 of 21 against Ole Miss and 7 of 13 in last Friday’s bad loss to CSU Bakersfield.
Kigab himself was partly to blame on Tuesday. He had a game-high 27 points and made some huge shots to keep the Broncos in it – but also went just 5 of 11 from the foul line. He missed two free throws in the final seconds.
“There’s nobody in the country that shoots more free throws than him in practice on his own,” Rice said. “It’s almost like I might have to go straight line in the opposite direction and get him not to shoot any for a while and let him do some mental work and let the air out of the balloon because it’s strung pretty tight right now I think.
“It kills him because he played a terrific game but all he feels like is he let his guys down by missing free throws and that kills him because he plays so hard for the fans, his teammates, this school. He gives everything he has. I don’t know if I’ve had a guy that put in as much time as him.”
Rice said the Broncos shoot “a lot better” from the foul line in practice, which gives him confidence it will soon turn around.
“No doubt,” Rice said. “They don’t shoot 40 percent. I know they can fix it. When the numbers end, when the year ends, Abu’s numbers will correct. He’s too good and he spends too much time doing it.”
Added freshman Tyson Degenhart, who had 12 points and six rebounds in his first career start but missed his only free throw attempt, “We just have to get back in the lab and keep shooting them because with this game we miss 14 and if we make a couple of those we win the game.
“Once we start knocking them down I think we’re going to win a lot of games.”
As for the game itself, the Broncos were in great position to win had they just hit a few more from the foul line. The Broncos shot 46.3 percent from the field overall, grabbed 14 offensive rebounds and had just 10 turnovers.
But in the end it’s a second straight loss for the Broncos, who will be back in action Friday night at home at 7 p.m.
Boise State has played a tough schedule in the early going. The Broncos have already played four teams ranked in the top 100 at KenPom – but they are just 1-3 in those games.
“I scheduled like this on purpose,” Rice said. “To build us for the end. I wouldn’t do that with a young team because it’s tough and it’s night after night, but it’s forcing us to face issues and get better and we’re going to. I’ve got resilient guys that care about each other and are going to battle.”
They’ve just got to start making some free throws.
Credit Leon for changing up the lineup by swapping out Doutrive for Degenhart and not just relying on the same stagnant start to games. Doutrive should give a scoring boost off the bench so that makes sense. Armus with the early fire getting started with 2 buckets and a steal, I would like to have him maintain that edge but was subbed off the floor frequently. In fact Leon’s rotation here was confusing at best when subbing off Armus early for Milner only to have Milner play 4(?) minutes and then sit the rest of the game. Kuzmanovic was our best player off the bench and gave considerable energy and clutch 3’s, not to mention going perfect from the line when all others failed. In fact, why was Max Rice shooting the tech free throw right after Kuz had made 2 in a row only to miss… they sure could have used that 1 point down the stretch. I’m thinking Max Rice will get Joey Nebekered out to Caldwell after this season. Timeouts are a mystery to me as I see Leon and the assistants huddled in front of the makeshift floor bench for half of the timeout before going to address the team sans whiteboard.
Expanding on the timeout procedure, what use is it to place stools on the floor for timeouts? Why not use the bench and save those 20 seconds to talk to the team more and possibly draw up and inbounds play (more on that later). I see more time wasted in timeouts then actual discussion on the game with players. I wonder why Leon has to huddle with coaches at the start of the timeout when he has been alongside thim during the game. Have they not discussed what the plans are in real time? Does Leon own a white board? Why is the bald assistant the only white board user?
I digress.. After a hot start only to loose the lead going into half I am optimistic that BSU will improve but Leon’s halftime adjustments never have filled me with confidence. That confidence starts to wain the moment the 2nd half starts and I catch Leon checking out the 1st Half Stats page while crouched in front of the scorers table during the first couple of possessions. Did he not have that information in the locker room at halftime? You would think he didn’t need to see that stats page to understand that Free Throw shooting is abysmal. In fact the shoot-around before the 2nd half consisted of everyone except 1 person (Kijab I believe, which is even more painful that he couldn’t cash in even 1 free throw at the end) standing at the 3 point line jacking up shots, even Armus was in on the act. Multiple possessions ended up as essentially broken plays where, usually Akot, would take a tough shot only because they spend 25 seconds aimlessly passing around the perimeter. On ball screens are the only solution most of the time which evolves into poor shots. Why not move Akot off the ball, as he is not that adapt at being the primary ball handler, and use Shaver, Doutrive, Kuz at the PG position to help get into sets quicker. Akot does not distribute the ball effectively enough to be there. Matt Bauscher ( oh hey Bauscher ad) sitting across from the benches showed much more energy and passion during this game than any coach wearing blue (Bauscher was actually wearing a blue Polo strikingly similar to the coaches attire, maybe he should just walk across the floor and assist).
Down the stretch the lack of coaching and set plays are glaring as Leon must think that he still had Derrick Marks here to bail him out in tight games. In fact I blame Marks for being so effective in tight spots that it gave Leon the excuse not to learn how to set up end of game plays, his idea is to give it to our best guy and let him find a way. Unfortunately Derrick Marks isn’t coming thru that door (to paraphrase Coach Pitino)
The last play of regulation was a perfect example of this as 8 seconds were wasted in just dribbling the ball up the court so Leon, as he should have, called a timeout to set up a play (or so it seemed). Again the timeout was not a group of coaches and players huddled together for a common play but he players sitting and waiting for the coaches to engage them. OK this is the time for Leon to draw up a play and I mean anything, off ball screens, backdoor cuts any kind of movement. It was not surprising the to see the in-bounds “play” consist of Akot boxing out his defender at the 3 point line to receive the pass only to dribble out 5 of the 8 seconds left then dribble to the key for a fade away jumper that didn’t even draw iron. Me sitting in the parquay 3 beers in could have come up with a better option.
Overtime was the same disappointing misses at the line coupled with bad possessions but still there was a way to find a W. Those hopes were dashed by a couple of questionable refereeing calls first on Kijab when he tried to slide around a slipping St Louis player only to get whistled for a foul on inadvertent contact. St. Louis made no mistake in nailing the free throws (which they did with regularity). Then the back breaker was Shaver driving the lane only to get tripped by his defender (inadvertent it seemed) but if they got the call on one end Shaver should have gotten the call on the other end.
All told this was another disappointing loss in a season that is becoming one to forget. It used to be like being a BSU basketball fan was like being a Vikings fan, you never were going to win the “big one” but were always at least competitive and had the chances to play in big games but never can get over the hump. Now being a BSU Basketball fan is akin to being a Detroit Lions fan… no hope in sight.
To be fair, still would have won with good officiating. Up 13-3 with a 0-5 foul count refs just started calling any slight contact by Boise State as a foul to basically level the score line and foul deficit. Also with moments left in the game against St. Louis, they got away with a trip moments after we get a foul for tripping a Billiken on an inbound pass (he definitely flopped once, maybe twice).
This isn’t an anomaly sadly. Been getting this officiating since joining the MWC about 10 years ago.
Can we talk about Milner’s near-constant inability to strongly take the ball to the hoop? I feel like there’s 2-3 plays in each game, dating back to last season, where he seems to have better positioning and what should be easy layups end up getting blocked. I know he’s more a “body” than an integral part of the rotation, but still…