Despite the Win, Miami Still Can’t Figure Out the Free-Throw Line

Trinton Breeze

Thursday at 12:44 AM 2 min read

Miami beat Stanford 79–70 on Wednesday night. The win counts. That’s the good news. The bad news? The free-throw line is still a problem.

Miami did what they needed to do to get the W. Malik Reneau was a monster inside, finishing with 20 points, and Tre Donaldson got off to a hot start. The Canes looked like they were in control at times. That’s how you win games. But Miami made it harder than it needed to be. Missed free throws kept Stanford in the game. The Cardinals even took the lead at the end of the first half. In the second half, Miami couldn’t get the lead back until about the 10-minute mark.

Luckily the Cardinals didn't capitalize on Miami's missed free throws.

The Hurricanes were 19 of 31 (under 61%). That’s not good enough if you want to beat teams that don’t fold. We’ve seen this before—Florida, BYU—games that could have been wins turned into nail-biters because Miami can’t hit the stripe. Stanford didn’t fully make them pay, but a better team would have.

Still, Miami is winning games. That matters. The defense held up, Reneau and Donaldson came through, and the Hurricanes found a way to close it out. But until the free throws get fixed, nothing is ever easy. Every game is going to have a little tension.

Free points. One thing. Make them. This isn't just a one-game issue. Miami has had a tough time with free throws almost all season.

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Comments (27)

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Fightinibis

Thursday at 1:08 AM

Great write up man…but don’t forget the abysmal rebounding with the FT line. They need to work on both.

Gables Canes

Thursday at 7:03 AM

Fightinibis said:
Great write up man…but don’t forget the abysmal rebounding with the FT line. They need to work on both.

We are usually a very good rebounding team, but we had a stretch last night where we just got lazy at crashing the glass

H
hotshot

Thursday at 7:09 AM

Trinton Breeze said:
Miami beat Stanford 79–70 on Wednesday night. The win counts. That’s the good news. The bad news? The free-throw line is still a problem.

Miami did what they needed to do to get the W. Malik Reneau was a monster inside, finishing with 20 points, and Tre Donaldson got off to a hot start. The Canes looked like they were in control at times. That’s how you win games. But Miami made it harder than it needed to be. Missed free throws kept Stanford in the game. The Cardinals even took the lead at the end of the first half. In the second half, Miami couldn’t get the lead back until about the 10-minute mark.

Luckily the Cardinals didn't capitalize on Miami's missed free throws.

The Hurricanes were 19 of 31 (under 61%). That’s not good enough if you want to beat teams that don’t fold. We’ve seen this before—Florida, BYU—games that could have been wins turned into nail-biters because Miami can’t hit the stripe. Stanford didn’t fully make them pay, but a better team would have.

Still, Miami is winning games. That matters. The defense held up, Reneau and Donaldson came through, and the Hurricanes found a way to close it out. But until the free throws get fixed, nothing is ever easy. Every game is going to have a little tension.

Free points. One thing. Make them. This isn't just a one-game issue. Miami has had a tough time with free throws almost all season.

We were looking better as a team there shooting FTs for awhile. Now regressing.

Duke has lived on their players getting fouled and making FTs for decades so I know Coach Lucas has to be aware of this and other shooting deficiencies.

ShadowSpring

Thursday at 7:19 AM

Squad has got to make more shots or they are about to get exposed. Great way to grind out a win and finish strong last night

C
Cane30

Thursday at 7:56 AM

It was a better crowd than I expected for such a late start. It was a hard game to watch for me. This team has a lot to work on. We knew we were lacking offensive weapons coming into this season, but that performance 20 games in was rough. I am being kind. The rebounding was bad enough, but the free-throw shooting is just not exceptable.

Tinman64

Thursday at 8:33 AM

Whats considered a grear ft % …i assumee 80%?

H
hotshot

Thursday at 8:52 AM

Cane30 said:
It was a better crowd than I expected for such a late start. It was a hard game to watch for me. This team has a lot to work on. We knew we were lacking offensive weapons coming into this season, but that performance 20 games in was rough. I am being kind. The rebounding was bad enough, but the free-throw shooting is just not exceptable.

I've heard the excuses for 30 years. Game is too early, game is too late, too many other things to do in So Fla (even on a cool Weds nite), etc.

You either have fans or you don't. Did the students at least show up?

Last edited by a moderator: Thursday at 9:13 AM

AtlAtty

Thursday at 9:12 AM

Tinman64 said:
Whats considered a grear ft % …i assumee 80%?

College teams should be able to make 70%. Anything over 75% is really good in college, and over 80% is elite and almost unheard of.

AtlAtty

Thursday at 9:13 AM

Good win last night. Canes played really well for the first 5 minutes and last 5 minutes. And did just enough in the other 30 minutes.
Reneau is automatic around the basket. Henderson was aggressive all night. Now he needs to figure out how to use the free throw line floater because that shot is available with how well we finish lobs. Washington has such quick hands that you can almost expect some steals. Use h was very quiet with a nice lob finish at the end.

Henderson made some very impactful plays last night with his hustle and athleticism, but his shot was really, really off. Poor FT shooting, he airballed a 3 pointer. He never looked comfortable shooting last night.

C
caneworld

Thursday at 10:08 AM

What does it take to up our FT shooting performance? Some games we can use all the free points we can get... frustrating

Da Jumbo Mutombo

Thursday at 10:09 AM

ShadowSpring said:
Squad has got to make more shots or they are about to get exposed. Great way to grind out a win and finish strong last night

What do you mean by exposed?

This is a deeply flawed team, and what Jai has done and 17 wins so far is nothing short of a miracle.

People need to realize this team has greatly overachieved their expectations, but its not a team built for a championship (this year).

But I am so impressed by Jai this year, im just enjoying the ride. But if they lose, I They probably just lost to a team better than them, I dont call that being exposed, personally.

I cant wait to see Jai work the portal next year.

Gables Canes

Thursday at 11:24 AM

hotshot said:
I've heard the excuses for 30 years. Game is too early, game is too late, too many other things to do in So Fla (even on a cool Weds nite), etc.

You either have fans or you don't. Did the students at least show up?

I’d estimate 400 or so students were there

Fightinibis

Thursday at 1:11 PM

Gables Canes said:
We are usually a very good rebounding team, but we had a stretch last night where we just got lazy at crashing the glass

It was a little more than a stretch, just sayin

Fightinibis

Thursday at 1:13 PM

Da Jumbo Mutombo said:
What do you mean by exposed?

This is a deeply flawed team, and what Jai has done and 17 wins so far is nothing short of a miracle.

People need to realize this team has greatly overachieved their expectations, but its not a team built for a championship (this year).

But I am so impressed by Jai this year, im just enjoying the ride. But if they lose, I They probably just lost to a team better than them, I dont call that being exposed, personally.

I cant wait to see Jai work the portal next year.

Well that is what I meant as well. Sure, of course I am going to fan like this team and coach have been together for 3 years when they constantly turn the ball over or miss free throws…but the fact truly is that all of them have done a **** of a job thus far trying to build fast continuity with a shallow bench.

Truly impressive, so much so I would love for them to get over the hump with the glaring FT and turnover issues, but even if they don’t…very **** strong season thus far for having to assemble a team like this under the gun.

Tinman64

Thursday at 1:15 PM

AtlAtty said:
College teams should be able to make 70%. Anything over 75% is really good in college, and over 80% is elite and almost unheard of.

H
hotshot

Thursday at 1:41 PM

The offenders on missed FTs last nite were Shelton (4-9) and Malovec (0-3). Other than that, not bad at all.

Pentagon Cane

Thursday at 1:48 PM

Despite all that we were still +9 in total rebounds and +2 in OR. We also made 10 of 12 from the foul line down the stretch.

AtlAtty

Thursday at 1:52 PM

Pentagon Cane said:
Despite all that we were still +9 in total rebounds and +2 in OR. We also made 10 of 12 from the foul line down the stretch.

It helped that Washington, Reneau and Donaldson took the late game FT’s.

Da Jumbo Mutombo

Thursday at 2:03 PM

Fightinibis said:
Well that is what I meant as well. Sure, of course I am going to fan like this team and coach have been together for 3 years when they constantly turn the ball over or miss free throws…but the fact truly is that all of them have done a **** of a job thus far trying to build fast continuity with a shallow bench.

Truly impressive, so much so I would love for them to get over the hump with the glaring FT and turnover issues, but even if they don’t…very **** strong season thus far for having to assemble a team like this under the gun.

I get it, they need to make free throws or eventually it will bite them and they will lose.

I think I just took issue with his word choice. "Exposed". That word insinuates this team is fraudulent and overated. But you cant be fraudulent/overated when the media's preseason expectations were bottom of the barrel ACC team.