For those of you unsure as to why I have not been posting recently, this post serves to answer that question. I posted this on April 17th, but posted it in another blog accidentally.

Surprisingly, I was able to find time both days so far this week to shoot free throws. Results:

Monday: 47/100

Tuesday: 46/100

Clearly, no improvement was to be had. Monday I shot in Parfitt, and felt great before I started. As far as notes on the round go, let’s say that I have shot better from three point land in a quarter than I did in a few of the quarters of free throws on Monday. Very frustrating, and disappointing to say the least. Tuesday was more of the same, despite shooting in the SAC, where I started off even worse than Monday. The ball was anti-net for most of the day, as I could count on two hands how many shots went in that were not swishes. Around shot 80, I decided that my score would be so pitiful regardless of what I did that I no longer cared about taking my time and sticking with my current pre-shot routine of one bounce, reverse spin of the ball, two more bounces, and then spin the ball in my left hand. I began rebounding the ball, walking back to the line, taking one dribble, and shooting very quickly, and I actually improved my percentage. This proves one of two things: first, that my previous pre-shot routine was ineffective, or second, that a pre-shot routine means absolutely nothing at all. 

After some reflection, I have found this study to be quite taxing mentally, in the sense that there is an expectation with any repeated experiment to see improvement. Although I have looked at this experiment as positively as I possibly can, I have made no real improvements. Yes, I have improved upon a previous days shooting, but I have yet to make any type of consistent progress towards getting better at free throw shooting. My initial 67 of 100 still stands as my best overall score, and there was no practice leading up to shooting those 100 consecutive free throws; I just picked up a ball and shot. I have since tweaked my form countless times, and adjusted my workout regiment so as not to throw off my shot, yet I have seen no improvement as a result of said adjustments. I feel no more comfortable at the free throw line than I did that first day of shooting; in fact, I feel less comfortable.

For the sake of my sanity, I have decided to suspend this experiment indefinitely, so as to focus on other items that require more attention, and have some level of improvement associated with consistent participation. I have yet to determine how long this suspension will last, but I will know when I am ready to resume. For now, I am going to invest the time it would typically take me to shoot on my studies, so as to finish out my first year of graduate school on a high note. Although I did not foresee an issue such as this arising when I decided to begin this study, I must handle this issue before it becomes a larger one. 

I apologize to any of you who read this blog on a consistent basis, and were genuinely interested in the experiment. I encourage you all to continue shooting, if you have been, and to report in your results. I would be happy to post others’ results on this blog, in order to keep the experiment moving in some fashion during this break. 

Again, my apologies to those of you who were following along with the blog. I hope to get myself back in action sooner rather than later, but we will see how things go.

Keep Shootin,

Mike

My schedule this past week was crazy, but I am glad to say that it is over. Unfortunately, it only gets busier from here on out, so I am afraid that the blog will be receiving less attention than it deserves in the next few weeks. I was able to shoot three times this past week, with the following results:

Thursday, 4/17 - 17/25, 29/50, 46/75, 57/100 FT’s, 28/100 3P’s

Friday, 4/18 - 14/25, 27/50, 43/75, 59/100 FT’s, 23/56 3P’s

You may be wondering why I mentioned shooting three times, yet only listed two days of shooting. In searching through my notes on my phone, I accidentally deleted my results from Wednesday. I am definitely upset about it, but I have accepted the fact that I can do nothing about it. One thing I do remember from Wednesday’s shooting is that it took me 38 shots to miss my first 10. I cannot remember my final score, but I know it was less than my record of 67.

I have communicated to a few staff members at the Student Activity Center that I have been performing this experiment, and a few ask me on a consistent basis about my results. One of those individuals is Craig Maas, who used to be a Building Supervisor/Student Manager for us. Craig has mentioned a few times in passing that he would like to give it a shot to see where he stands, and decided to take the leap on Friday. He wound up shooting a 61, two better than my 59 for the day. I was surprisingly not terribly upset that I was beaten at “my own game” per say; instead, I was humbled by the fact that I was able to spark enough interest in an individual for them to physically join me, and excited that I could bring some level of joy to someone through this experiment I have been running for the last six or seven weeks. Definitely enjoyed the experience of alternating sets of 25 shots, and would be excited to give it another go. 

This week, I was unable to accomplish either goal I had set: make 15/25 three pointers, or take at least 40 shots before missing my first ten. As they were not accomplished, they will become this weeks goals. Progress to follow.

Keep Shootin,

Mike

I’m a little late on the blog, but here we go:

Monday, 4/2 - 10/25, 23/50, 35/75, 50/100

Wednesday, 4/4 - 15/25, 31/50, 43/75, 58/100

Thursday, 4/5 - 16/30, 26/50, 38/75, 56/100

Friday, 4/6 - 15/25, 28/50, 48/75, 62/100

Definitely a poor start to the week, kicking things off with ten of my first 25. Monday’s positive is that I at least made 50%. Wednesday wasn’t terrible. Started off ok, went cold in the third quarter. Thursday was a day of peaks and valleys, starting fine, going ice cold with ten in the second and twelve in the third, and hitting eighteen to finish out. Friday was the highest score of the week, and had high hopes coming somewhere near my current high score, which if you can remember was achieved on the first day of this experiment, of 67 out of 100. Although this was just another day below where I aspire to be, one thing that can be taken away is that I hit 20 out of 25 in the third quarter, which is my highest score out of 25 to date, and was my goal of last week. Good to see that I finally reached a goal that I have set for myself.

I also continued the trend of shooting 100 3-point shots, in an effort to see where I might peak. My numbers for shooting 3’s on Thursday and Friday are as follows:

Thursday, 4/5 - 10/25, 18/50, 26/75, 35/50

Friday, 4/6 - 11/25, 22/50, …, 40/100

As you can see, constant improvement over the four times I have attempted this experiment. Eleven is my current high score for a set of 25, and my goal is to push that to fifteen during the coming week. Additionally, my second goal of the week is on the free throw side: take at least 40 shots before missing my first ten. Often, I find myself missing my first ten shots within the first fifteen-twenty shots I take. In order for me to have a chance at the end, I need to get myself into a groove early on. Hopefully these goals will allow me to get the scores to where I want them to be.

Although I will not be able to shoot as much due to an absurd schedule to finish out the semester, I do plan on continuing with this experiment, and the blog. I am hoping to shoot at least three times a week, but given as I have only shot once this week so far, it is going to be an interesting task to keep up with. More to come, including guaranteed improvement…I guarantee it.

Keep Shootin,

Mike

My constant need for things being non-routine may realistically be keeping me from settling into a groove, and raising my scores thereafter.

Monday 3/26 - 12/25, 30/50, 47/75, 61/100

Tuesday 3/27 - 11/25, 23/50, 37/75, 52/100

Wednesday 3/28 - 12/25, 24/50, 38/75, 44/100

Thursday 3/29 - 15/25, 25/50, 40/75, 54/100

Saturday 3/31 - 14/25, 31/50, 46/75, 63/100

A few pretty good scores this week, and one pretty awful one. I am going to start summarizing these with daily highlights (and lowlights if there is a need).

Monday - highest score of 25 for the week at 18. Monday was pretty disappointing, given that I had a decent chance of hitting a new record. Also disappointing to go from scores of 18 and 17 down to 14 to end on a low note.

Tuesday - a real, real slow start kept Tuesday from going anywhere fast.

Wednesday - another slow start, yet better than Tuesday through three quarters. I must have experimented with shooting left handed and blindfolded for the last quarter, because that is downright embarrassing. 

Thursday - the ten in the second quarter really threw me off. 

Saturday - two seventeens is never a bad thing, but the fourteen and the fifteen definitely leave more room for improvement. 

This week, I miraculously found a little extra free time, and decided to try something different. As a kid, I could never really drive the ball to the hoop. Thus, I prided myself on my perimeter shooting, and considered myself to be a pretty good three-point shooter. On Tuesday, I decided to see just how good of a three-point shooter I truly was. I shot 100 consecutive threes, and managed to make 23. Not a great score by any means, but not terrible. I decided to give it another go on Thursday because I could not settle for that score. I ended up shooting 150 threes, and hit 42 (28%). Again, not great, but definitely an improvement. 

I will try to continue with this route of a weekly post, just to make things easier on my end. I am also going to begin another new segment of this blog: a weekly goal. As with any plan, goal setting is necessary to make significant progress toward the desired end result. This week’s weekly goal: 20/25 for one quarter.

Keep Shootin,

Mike

After a solid start to the week with two scores in the 60’s, I had intentions of touching 70 by Friday. It was not to be, as my daily progressions went as follows:

Wed - 17/25, 32/50, 46/75, 60/100

Thu - 8/25, 21/50, 36/75, 53/100

Fri - 15/25, 27/50, 42/75, 55/100

The highlight of my shooting this week was on Wednesday, when I had a streak of 12 in a row (shots 17-28), and hit 17 of 18 from shots 17-34. Despite breaking my personal best for consecutive shots, and certainly my best percentage out of eighteen shots, I found a way to balance it out shortly thereafter (for those following along at home, I started the second set of 25 shots on Wednesday 8 for 9, and finished out 7 for 16). Thursday I managed a streak of 9 for 10 in the third quarter of shots, so we will make that two highlights. 

Through Thursday, I have utilized 9 of the 12 hoops in the Sports Forums of the SAC. On Friday, pick up basketball and Intramural volleyball dominated all six courts, so I was forced to move to Rose. The courts in Rose remind me of a middle school gym. The hoops are mounted to the wall, and the rims are old school (aka not break-away).I had hoped to find a level of comfortability there that I could not find in the Sports Forums. To my dismay, I managed another middle of the road score in the 50’s.

However, I decided on Friday to implement a new device to assist with my shot, or at least, to assist in the mental side of things. Over the course of this experiment, I have missed a lot of shots. A lot. The most frustrating shots are not the ones that rim out, or shots that I miss everything altogether; it is easily the most frustrating to hit the front rim. Hitting the front rim with a free throw to me is a sign of fear; fear of shooting the ball too hard and missing, and therefore taking enough off of the shot so that it barely hits anything at all. Of all of my misses, it is safe to say that somewhere around 2/3 of my misses are a result of hitting the front rim. Therefore, in order to attempt to correct this, I have decided that every time I miss a shot off of the front rim, I will sprint to the end line and back to the free throw line before grabbing the basketball and lining up for my next shot. It sounds counterintuitive in the sense that I will tire out more quickly, but I feel as though it will not affect me so much that my shot falls off completely. Some results on this new addition to come in the next few posts.

To end things on a brighter note, on Friday I managed to dunk a tennis ball multiple times after an interval workout and shooting my free throws (with quite a few sprints because of front rim misses). It has been a goal of mine to dunk a basketball for about five semesters, but my motivation to actually complete the task has been minimal. I am hoping that this will ignite the fire to accomplish this in the next six weeks before heading home to New Jersey for summer.

Keep Shootin’,

Mike

Thursday, March 15th, 2012:

18/25, 32/50, 46/75, 62/100

On Thursday, I started our hot. Eighteen is the highest number I have posted for the first twenty-five shots to date, so I was definitely excited about that. However, I followed the great start with back-to-back fourteens, but still left the door open to break my high score if I went near perfect from the stripe to close out. Unfortunately, it was not in the cards as I shot sixteen of my final twenty-five to finish with sixty-two on the day. Although the results are still not nearly as high as I would like to see them, I am excited to see some progress. Also good to note, I reached the century mark for total number of free throws taken during this experiment.

I was unable to shoot on Friday due to a class deadline that I was unable to reach as early as I would have liked to. Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day, so of course I had to take the day off. On Sunday, I was in the Events Center shooting in Parfitt Gymnasium, and got about half way through before I ran out of time. Two of my fellow GA’s and I went to see The Black Keys in Grand Rapids, MI, and poor planning on my end led to a half test on Sunday. For the purposes of this experiment, I omitted the data to be consistent; more so because I forgot what my numbers were when I stopped, but I will omit either way. I went out to shoot again on Monday, and was cut off due to an Intramural Volleyball game. I was 38/65 (58.5%) at the time I left the court, but again, I will not include partial data in the experiment.

Tuesday morning I was able to get back into gear, and shot the full 100 free throws. My progression was as follows:

14/25, 31/50, 49/75, 66/100

Although I had a rocky start, I quickly shifted gears to notch seventeen, eighteen, and seventeen to finish the day at 66. Again, excited to see improvement, but disappointed in that I missed another opportunity to top my high score, as I went 3/5 on shots 96-100, and missed the last shot that would have tied my previous record. 

Two things were brought into perspective today, and should be noted. For a small portion of my shots (maybe 15-20), one of our Building Supervisors, Dale, was in the Large Sports Forum with me. He watched me shoot for a little while, and rebounded on a few as well. One thing that I noticed while he was rebounding was that it was much, much easier to settle into a groove, and my level of comfort at the line grew exponentially. When he left, my confidence and performance shrunk back to normalcy. Maybe I just liked the added pressure of someone watching. In any event, Dale pointed out later that my current technique does not involve much leg movement; my shot comes entirely from my arm. This makes a lot of sense, as I have noticed that fatigue has become somewhat of a factor towards the end of each experiment (typically between shots 80 and 85). I am excited to play around tomorrow with different movements to try to find more room for improvement.

As mentioned in the title of this post, I now have a second study on the way. It does not involve me shooting free throws, nor me playing basketball at all. This new study is in accordance with my MBA class on Economic Analysis; specifically, multiple regression analysis. In short, multiple regression analysis allows an individual to state a dependent variable, and see to what extent independent variables are related and significant or insignificant to the dependent variable.  My professor made it very clear that sports topics are welcomed, and I instantly sought a way to tie this blog and/or free throws into the project. My first topic idea was to generate a list of previous NBA MVP’s, and track what statistics were most significant amongst the winners. Unfortunately, I was unable to choose this topic because of the type of data that would be involved (the dependent variable is nominal, in that all of the test subjects have won the MVP award, meaning they would each be represented by a “1”, and the graph of the test subjects would be a straight line). After a few hours of thought, and a phone call to a fellow GA, Jon, we decided that playing time would be an interesting dependent variable. I took a random sample of three players from each team in the 2010-2011 season, and plotted their individual statistics, including playing time.

So, for the next five weeks or so, I will be analyzing this data, and seeing what statistics are most significant towards any given player’s time on the court. I have not had the chance to analyze this data much to this point, but I can only hope that free throws is statistically significant.

Keep Shootin,

Mike

I was 95% through writing this post the first time around, and a link decided to wipe my post clean. I will do my best to regurgitate the relevant information from the post.

Following Monday’s 14% increase, I had high hopes for Tuesday. I got to the Student Activity Center to get some cardio in and shoot at 8:30a so as to not give momentum a chance to escape my clutches, and more so to be on time for our 10a  Professional Staff meeting. Here is the progression of my results, broken down quarterly:

13/25, 26/50, 36/75, 53/100

In comparison to Monday’s numbers, I increased the first quarter by four and decreased the second by two, despite matching the first quarter. The third quarter brought some frustrations as I only made ten of 25, which was another four shot decrease from Monday. Finally, I picked it up in the last quarter and matched Monday’s number of seventeen to finish at 53 for the day. This was a little frustrating, but I was happy to end on a positive note. As I mentioned in my initial post, I cannot blame my workout for my poor percentage. I am a believer that nothing outside of major injury should hinder your ability to perform fundamental activity functions.

I shot in the early afternoon Wednesday after a twenty minute interval workout, in hopes of righting the ship and getting back to improvements. Wednesday’s progression of results, by quarter:

14/25, 31/50, 46/75, 55/100

From the start, I felt more loose than I have since day one at the line. On previous days, I believe I spent more of my time calculating percentages as I went, rather than concentrating on shooting. As you can see, I had a one shot improvement after the first quarter, followed by a five shot improvement after the second quarter. I started off the third quarter 0/5, but regained focus and hit fifteen of my next twenty. It was then, as I recorded my score three quarters through, that I went ice cold. I understood that I was excited for the prospect of reaching my current high of 67, and even reaching or breaking my original hypothesis of 70. I overcompensated for my level of excitement so much that I completely missed the rim on my 76th shot: an air ball. Quick to get back on track, and to make sure no one else around noticed my complete miss, I grabbed the ball, ran back to the line, and shot again: front rim. I did not make another shot until my 86th; including the air ball, I missed ten straight. Slightly discouraged, I finished by shooting 7/13 and got out of the gym as quickly as possible. However, in looking back, I have noticed that there is much to be happy about, and there were many small improvements which I intend to continue developing on.

Another bit of hope came when I logged into Facebook after class this evening. After creating this blog and drafting the first post, I posted it on Gary Baker’s Facebook wall, and challenged him and a few other friends to shoot 100 free throws and report back their results to see where we all stack up. Gary shot earlier today, and posted his results in his blog. Gary ended up shooting 80 of 100, which is a very commendable percentage. It would be easy for me to be discouraged, as the difference between my recent scores and his initial score is quite large. However, I am viewing it as positive encouragement, in that I never let anyone beat me at anything. I was born a competitor; from free throw contests, to shoe lace tying, to sasquatch-catching: I will compete at nearly anything. 

Based on this, I now have a new goal: 81. 81 is the number I need to reach to force Gary to shoot again. Setting a goal like this may not seem logical, considering my current high is 67, but that makes no difference to me. I would consider my initial goal of 70 to be a “soft” goal, in that it was just a number I chose I was going to aim for, and there was no real motivation to reach it. Reaching 81 is now a “hard” goal, as it has been reached by a friend, and I have greater motivation to attain it. I am excited to see where this new motivation leads us on our journey through 365 days of free throws.

Keep Shootin,

Mike

First, I would like to say that I am utterly surprised that I lasted five days of shooting 100 consecutive free throws per day, especially given the results. Although I am not an easily discouraged person, putting up numbers like those and displaying them for all to see is not something that bodes well for my street credit. Anyway, I went back to the court on Saturday to try to improve and utilize some new knowledge gained from the first five days of shooting.

Much to my dismay, I hit rock bottom: 41 of 100. To put in perspective how bad that truly is, I looked up some statistics. As of yesterday, Ray Allen has taken 6,728 career three-point baskets in the NBA, of which he has made 2,694. A bit of arithmetic will lead you to a solution of 40%. At its shortest point, the three-point line is seven feet further from the hoop than the free throw line. It is also important to keep in mind that three point shots come from live play, whereas free throws are from stopped play. That being said, this man has shot contested three point shots over a 15+ year career at nearly the same percentage as I shot uncontested foul shots over 15 minutes. Despite Ray Allen being arguably the greatest three-point shooter of all time, this is a difficult statistic to digest for me. Even more difficult to digest is the fact that Ben Wallace, arguably the worst free throw shooter of all time, shot at 41.8% for his career. Although Wallace was a relatively dominant low post player for a period of time, his free throw percentage was downright hysterical, and I shot south of it on Saturday.

I own up to my poor percentage from the afternoon session, but I will say that I began trying different things in order to find a groove. Unfortunately, this groove came at the tail end of my outing, as I hit my last three free throws, and shot around 75% after I completed my 100 for the day. Again, I am not making an excuse; I am simply stating, for the purposes of this blog, that I tried some different things in order to find something that worked more effectively than what I had been doing. 

Despite the improvements afterward, I decided to take the day off Sunday in order to gather my thoughts and rest after a long week of basketball in hopes of hitting the ground running on Monday. With a new technique, and a brand new basketball courtesy of Court Three storage (which was placed in the Fitness Center upon completion for those of you that are curious), I proceeded to shoot a 55 of 100. Although this is technically a failing grade, I was happy with the 14% improvement from Saturday, as well as the developing new technique. 

I decided to keep some additional statistics to make things a bit more interesting, and more importantly, to give me more points of improvement. I broke up my numbers into four quarters. For the first 25, I made only 9; for the second, 15, including a streak of 11 for 12 from shots 30 through 42. For the third 25, I made 14. The last 25 shots I decided to really turn it on, and made 17. The trend was that of relative improvement, despite the poor start, and definitely built some confidence as far as my technique is concerned. 

As the results continue to be sporadic, I have come to terms with the fact that this experiment is not one that will conclude quickly and with little effort; this is going to take time and work. As much as I would love to go from 55 to 90 in a day, and it is technically possible, I have learned to celebrate the smaller victories (although jumping up 14 points in a day is a pretty major gain). My goal is to continue developing a technique that I am comfortable with, because results will follow. As these are still the beginning stages of the experiment, I must expect that my outcomes may vary greatly from day to day. The deeper into the experiment I get, I will learn to better control my motion, and hopefully see some real results.

I will be back at it again tomorrow, continuing the development of this new technique, and hopefully breaking back into the 60’s. More stats will come as we delve further into the experiment, as well as some new ideas which will hopefully spark some more interest.

Keep Shootin,

Mike

I have always been a fan of the game of basketball. Something about growing up in New Jersey and watching the Knicks of the 90’s left a serious impression on me. I spent countless evenings with my Dad sitting on the living room floor and watching the Knicks until it was time for bed. The Knicks were typically the last thing I would think about before getting to sleep, and they would be the first thing I looked for in the newspaper the next morning. It was an intense relationship; I would not allow myself to watch basketball games that did not involve the Knicks in some way, as I felt I would be “cheating” on them.

As a Graduate Assistant at Central Michigan University, part of my responsibility is event management in our Events Center. That being said, our Men’s and Women’s varsity teams utilize our arena for home games, so I had no choice but to adjust my mindset and adopt two more teams into this relationship. I cannot say that I have not enjoyed this adoption; I can rarely watch Knicks games in Michigan, so having two additional teams to root for, whom do not compete with the Knicks, has been great for continuing this love for the game of basketball. Given the amount of time I have spent watching games this fall/winter, I have been able to see the game through a different lens, and have been able to look for certain things that those who do not have the same level of exposure might not. One of the components of the game that I paid particularly close attention to, and frustrated me (and I imagine many others as well) most, was free throws.

I’ve grown quite fond of the free throw, one of the most fundamental scoring opportunities in the game of basketball. This uncontested shot can decide winners of individual regular season games, and all the way up national championships, and separates those who truly care about the basics of the game from those who could care less. For me, a player’s free throw percentage is a direct representation of how much they care about the game of basketball, and their dedication to the sport. It is utterly frustrating to watch a player who can dance his/her way around the court and score from anywhere this side of the half court line with a hand in their face, miss an uncontested 14-footer from a complete stand still. I hold players with a high free throw shooting percentage in higher regard than those with lower percentages, because it says something  about their character. 

As a non-basketball player, I feel the need to harp on a poor free throw percentage more because of its unquestioned simplicity. Whereas no two shots taken from the floor at game speed are completely the same, every shot from the free throw line is identical. It takes incredible athleticism to cross-up a defender, drive to the hoop, and dunk over a seven-footer; it takes nothing more than one arm and one hand to shoot a free throw. This part of the game is taken for granted by many great basketball players, and it needs to return to relevance to protect the integrity of the game. 

This recent attention to free throws triggered a memory for me a few days ago. Sometime during my junior year of undergrad, one of my best friends had asked me how many free throws I think I could make out of 100. Having not touched a basketball in years, and running through percentages of random professional players in my head, I responded “70”. Long story short, I never got around to testing that hypothesis. As this was my spring break week, and having no obligations, I decided it was time to do just that.

On Monday, March 5th, 2012, I shot 100 consecutive free throws after a chest workout, rebounding for myself. It took me between fifteen and twenty minutes to complete, and I made 67 of the 100. I texted my friend and let him know of the percentage, and we joked and discussed it for a little while. Intrigued by the percentage, I decided to try it again on Tuesday; I proceeded to make 62 of 100. After texting him and reporting the second percentage, I decided that I was going to test some external factors to see what may or may not affect free throw percentage, and that I would track my progress for one year to note any significant improvements. 

It is now Saturday, and I have held true to my word. I shot 47% on Wednesday, 57% on Thursday, and 51% on Friday. Although I am not particularly enthused by my performance, it shows a few things that are relevant to the experiment: 1) my level of skill (or lack thereof), 2) my lack of consistency, and 3) the vast room for improvement. It would be pointless to run a test such as this if I were to hit 90 of 100 on a daily basis. 

So, from here on out, I will try to post my results every few days in order to track improvements and comment on affecters, positive and negative. My goal is to report additional statistics as well in order to spice things up, and allow for deeper analysis. Additionally, posts from here on out will be much, much shorter. 

I’m excited to see where this experiment, and this blog, will go.

Keep Shootin,

Mike