Opponents of my Iba Incarnate Word team in are shooting 74.4% (407 of 547) from the charity stripe in our games.

These same opponents are shooting 69.3% on the season in all their games (11,084 of 15,993).
Take the results of my games out and they are shooting 69.1% (10,677 of 15,446).

When they play me, they shoot 74.4%, which is good for the 13th best free throw shooting team in D-II. When they play anyone else, they shoot 69.1% which looks like an average (at best) outcome. What is the probability of that? I have to think if free throw shooting outcomes are a normal distribution, that's way on the right-hand side.

I ask because I have what I think is a decent team that has a 13-12 record (against the #5 SOS) that might not make the NT. We are 0-7 in games decided by 2 points or less (or in OT).

Can I sacrifice a chicken to the Sim gods? Why do they hate me? Or should we just play better free throw defense?

Home Court Advantage isn't tied to opponents FT shooting, but maybe it should be?  Then again does it have any affect in real life?  For example, do teams shoot FT worse at someplace like Duke compared to their season average?

The other question would be are you fouling different people? Though that would take work.

I believe part of it is because, if you're playing zone, you aren't doing much defensively to tire the other team out. It also allows the other team's better players, aka starting 5, to stay in the game longer. Most of the other team's starting 5 are typically juniors and seniors, which have had a couple of years to improve their free throw grade.

I'm also thinking, since zone doesn't typically foul compared to other defenses, there will be a higher percentage of free throw attempts towards the end of the game where you need to put the other team's best free throw shooter at the line.

Both of these factors would explain the 5% difference.

Posted by thewizard17 on 2/13/2016 3:57:00 PM (view original):
I believe part of it is because, if you're playing zone, you aren't doing much defensively to tire the other team out. It also allows the other team's better players, aka starting 5, to stay in the game longer. Most of the other team's starting 5 are typically juniors and seniors, which have had a couple of years to improve their free throw grade.

I'm also thinking, since zone doesn't typically foul compared to other defenses, there will be a higher percentage of free throw attempts towards the end of the game where you need to put the other team's best free throw shooter at the line.

Both of these factors would explain the 5% difference.

I acknowledge there could be something to this, but we've run a fair amount of up tempo. Enough to where we draw 22.9 fouls a game, good for 23rd in D-II. We do a fair amount of getting into people's benches through foul trouble.

Your comment on seniors & juniors makes a little more sense to me. If zone = less tired players, then zone teams should shoot free throws better than others because of less fatigue/more playing time. Of the top 18 free throw shooting teams (>74%) in D-II iba, 5 were zone teams, 6 press & 7 were man. What I did notice is a lot of upperclassmen dominated rosters.

I'm still not sure it explains the full 5% difference. I might look at this for press teams, where you would expect lower free throw shooting percentages by opponents.

You the other question is your late and close free throw settings. More often than not you are in those situations where you are intentionally fouling going to have better free throw shooters fro the other tea shooting the free throws which might drive up your over all opponents percentage? You are 14-12 with a number of games that look like they fall into that late and close intentional foul band.

Could that be inflating your opponents free throw percentages?

For teams with a true free throw percentage of 69.3% (your combined opponents in all their games, 11084/15993), the probability of them making 407 or more out of 547 is approximately 0.005, or 0.5%. That's low (about 200:1 against), but given that there are a few hundred human-coached teams per world, it is likely to happen to at least one person, and that person happened to be you.

Posted by coach_blades on 2/19/2016 3:10:00 PM (view original):
For teams with a true free throw percentage of 69.3% (your combined opponents in all their games, 11084/15993), the probability of them making 407 or more out of 547 is approximately 0.005, or 0.5%. That's low (about 200:1 against), but given that there are a few hundred human-coached teams per world, it is likely to happen to at least one person, and that person happened to be you.

Thanks coach_blades, that was exactly what I was looking for.

Incidentally I did go back and look if I had a propensity to foul good free throw shooters. The players we fouled shot 69.7% for the season, barely higher than the 69.3% average FT shooting of opponents.