La Salle basketball: Free throws continue to be major factor for Explorers

La Salle basketball has struggled plenty in their first year under Ash Howard, but no numbers jump off the page quite like the ones that illustrate their problems staying out of foul trouble

Just after the new year, I identified something every Big 5 team should resolve to improve in 2019. For La Salle basketball, a team that had only won twice to that point in the season, and hadn’t won their first game until a week earlier, there were plenty of things they could be doing better after the calendar turned; they hadn’t come close to settling into Ash Howard’s new offensive system, they were shooting poorly (they remain one of the worst two-point shooting teams in the country), and they couldn’t find a way to win a few close basketball games. But the numbers that seemed to jump out the most were the amount of fouls committed and free throws given to opponents, statistical categories they ranked near the bottom of the country.

While it was startling how much La Salle was sending teams to the charity stripe, with only two wins on their resumé, it wasn’t clear at the time how strong of a correlation there would be between their wins and losses and the amount of times an opponent stepped up for a foul shot. One month later, and with a surprisingly respectable Atlantic 10 record in their possession, the picture has become a little bit clearer.

By the numbers

La Salle averages about 18.5 points against from the free throw line per game, or 25.1% of their total points against per game, according to KenPom. Only four teams in the country currently give up a higher percentage of their opponents’ points from the stripe. They’re bottom 300 in both total free throws made against and total free throw attempts against, and, unfortunately for the Explorers, 305th in free throw percentage against, a number almost entirely independent of their efforts. Their opponents knock down foul shots at a 72.8% rate. They were 267th in the country in total personal fouls before their home win against UMass on Wednesday, totaling just shy of 400.

Avoiding 20 at 20th and Olney

One of the most remarkable of these outlandish figures is the correlation between the total number of fouls committed by the Explorers and their wins and losses. La Salle is 5-1 in game they’ve totaled less than 20 fouls, and winless, 0-13, in games in which they’ve committed 20 or more. In games they’ve won, that 18.5 foul shots made against average falls to 11.8.

Obviously, every team is doing their best to keep out of foul trouble, and we’re not throwing the curtains open on any major revelation that’s not already more than apparent to La Salle’s coaching staff, but these numbers I can only imagine are close to historically bad for La Salle basketball. Ash Howard needs to find a way to keep his Explorers under that 20 foul figure, and of course he and his staff are doing what they can to address it. But these are definitely interesting numbers to keep an eye on as La Salle looks to claw their way towards .500 in the A10.

What makes these numbers even more difficult to digest for the La Salle faithful, however, are the almost tragic numbers behind their free throw shooting effort on the offensive side of the ball. La Salle is ninth – yes, 9th – in the country in free throw shooting percentage. Their seven top scorers all shoot above 75% from the stripe, including David Beatty’s 90.5% and Pookie Powell’s 84.3% (they combined to go 8-9 from the line in Wednesday’s win against Massachusetts).

Where La Salle ranks just as low as their abysmal defensive free throw rate and personal foul numbers, however, is in their ability to get to the free throw line; their 348 free throw attempts on the year is also bottom 300 in the country. They already score over 20% of their points from the free throw line, and if they were to be even average at getting to the stripe, they could average another two or three points per game.

Of course these numbers just significantly tilt one part of La Salle’s thus far disappointing season, and there’s no magic formula to finishing the season with a respectable record. But Saul Phiri’s emergence as a serious three-point threat, Pookie Powell continuing to do what he’s done throughout his La Salle career and put the ball through the hoop, and the steady improvement of the fouling numbers (those six times La Salle has kept under that 20 foul figure have all come in the last nine games) are positive factors in Ash Howard’s effort to take solid steps forward with La Salle’s program.