The Best Free Throw Defense

[Kyle321n]

I know you're reading this going "Free Throw Defense? Vashil can't through his arms up to block free throws." Exactly, but sometimes it's easier or hard to shoot depending on where you are playing.

Sometimes you're shooting into this:	And other times you're shooting into this:

So I decided to take a look at who has the best defense, who has the best road free throw shooting and what's the toughest arena to shoot at.

So here's some numbers for you.

Team	Home	Road	Opp	Overall
N Kentucky	64.3%	77.4%	75.5%	69.9%
Oakland	76.4%	83.7%	75.4%	79.6%
Detroit	71.9%	66.1%	74.2%	69.6%
Milwaukee	76.5%	76.1%	73.7%	76.3%
Ill Chicago	59.2%	58.5%	71.9%	58.9%
Green Bay	67.2%	68.8%	71.7%	68.1%
Wright St.	70.9%	64.8%	69.5%	68.6%
Youngstown	73.4%	73.9%	68.9%	73.7%
Valpo	66.9%	78.3%	63.4%	72.6%
Cleveland St	68.7%	65.7%	58.8%*	67.0%
*- Games inside Quicken Loans Arena not included

Now some analysis

• Oakland has the best free throw percentage. It appears they have the easiest shooting background at home, but they also are killing it shooting on the road. They seem to be immune to even the fiercest of banners that depict fans screaming.
• Speaking of banners of fans screaming, Cleveland State's opponents can't deal with shooting at the Wolstein's famous banner. Teams shoot 58.8% in the Center.
• But the Wolstein doesn't appear to be the hardest to shoot at. The Athletics and Recreation Center seems to not only hurt the opponent (shooting 63.4%) but also the Crusaders, who shoots nearly 12% worse at home.
• The best place to shoot Free throws? It's on the blacktop up in Rochester, MI.  Opponents are shooting the second best there and Oakland trives. The Bank of Kentucky Center seems to help the opponents when they visit boasting the best Opponent FT %, but the Norse actually shoot 13% better on the road!
• Wright State and Detroit's free throw shooting doesn't seem to travel well. Wright State shoots 6.2% worse on the road and Detroit follows with 5.8% worse. The average team actually shoots BETTER on the road by 1.8%
• UIC might be bad but they are a worse free throw shooting team, shooting a Wolstein like 58.9% overall. While at the Wolstein, they shot 39.3%!

I'm going to keep track of this through the remaining 18 games of the season, but I feel as if the sample size for each arena was big enough to see if there were any effects. I'll also track this to see if there's any trends that come about in future seasons. If anyone wants to run the data for past seasons, by all means they're welcome to it!

[a3uge]

I know you're reading this going "Free Throw Defense? Vashil can't through his arms up to block free throws." Exactly, but sometimes it's easier or hard to shoot depending on where you are playing.

Sometimes you're shooting into this:	And other times you're shooting into this:

So I decided to take a look at who has the best defense, who has the best road free throw shooting and what's the toughest arena to shoot at.

So here's some numbers for you.

Team	Home	Road	Opp	Overall
N Kentucky	64.3%	77.4%	75.5%	69.9%
Oakland	76.4%	83.7%	75.4%	79.6%
Detroit	71.9%	66.1%	74.2%	69.6%
Milwaukee	76.5%	76.1%	73.7%	76.3%
Ill Chicago	59.2%	58.5%	71.9%	58.9%
Green Bay	67.2%	68.8%	71.7%	68.1%
Wright St.	70.9%	64.8%	69.5%	68.6%
Youngstown	73.4%	73.9%	68.9%	73.7%
Valpo	66.9%	78.3%	63.4%	72.6%
Cleveland St	68.7%	65.7%	58.8%*	67.0%
*- Games inside Quicken Loans Arena not included

Now some analysis

• Oakland has the best free throw percentage. It appears they have the easiest shooting background at home, but they also are killing it shooting on the road. They seem to be immune to even the fiercest of banners that depict fans screaming.
• Speaking of banners of fans screaming, Cleveland State's opponents can't deal with shooting at the Wolstein's famous banner. Teams shoot 58.8% in the Center.
• But the Wolstein doesn't appear to be the hardest to shoot at. The Athletics and Recreation Center seems to not only hurt the opponent (shooting 63.4%) but also the Crusaders, who shoots nearly 12% worse at home.
• The best place to shoot Free throws? It's on the blacktop up in Rochester, MI.  Opponents are shooting the second best there and Oakland trives. The Bank of Kentucky Center seems to help the opponents when they visit boasting the best Opponent FT %, but the Norse actually shoot 13% better on the road!
• Wright State and Detroit's free throw shooting doesn't seem to travel well. Wright State shoots 6.2% worse on the road and Detroit follows with 5.8% worse. The average team actually shoots BETTER on the road by 1.8%
• UIC might be bad but they are a worse free throw shooting team, shooting a Wolstein like 58.9% overall. While at the Wolstein, they shot 39.3%!

I'm going to keep track of this through the remaining 18 games of the season, but I feel as if the sample size for each arena was big enough to see if there were any effects. I'll also track this to see if there's any trends that come about in future seasons. If anyone wants to run the data for past seasons, by all means they're welcome to it!

This is great, but I want a breakdown PER BASKET END!

[Kyle321n]

This is great, but I want a breakdown PER BASKET END!

I'm not sure if every team provides the half box scores, but if you want to go and break it down by halves I think you'll run into a couple problems. 1. You'll find the sample size by half isn't big enough to be statistically viable and 2. You'll go fvcking mad trying to pull the data.

[talksalot]

Are you including the Quicken Loans Arena games for CSU?...

[Kyle321n]

Are you including the Quicken Loans Arena games for CSU?...

I did for their home home stats, I took it out for the opponents. If I take out the games at the Q for CSU their home FT% drops 0.5%, or in terms of the number of free throws shot, half a free throw.