Wofford center gets advice from NBA great, changes shooting motion

Wofford center Kyler Filewich is a solid mid-major center. The fifth year senior from Winnipeg is averaging 11.7 points and 9.3 rebounds per game; the second number leads the Southern Conference. He’s got a pretty good shot making one of the All-Conference teams at the end of the year.

Filewich has one major weakness, though: he’s bad at free throws. In fact, bad is probably underselling it; Filewich has never shot better than .500 in any year of his college career. Since transferring to Wofford three years ago, Filwich’s free throw percentage only got worse. Last year, he shot 30.3% from the line; that would be a below-average three-point percentage, never mind free throw percentage.

This year, Filewich decided to try something different:

Filewich ended up getting connected with former NBA great Rick Berry, who was known for being a dead-eye shooter at the foul line while using an underhand shooting technique (although I prefer the term “granny-shot”). Barry spent a little time tutoring Filewich on the mechanics of the shot; Filewich then broke out the new shooting motion against Tennessee-Chattanooga, where he went 1-2. After an 0-4 outing at the line vs Mercer, he finally started seeing some results: 4-6 against The Citadel and a 6-10 performance at the line in his last game against Samford. The six made free throws were a career high for the Canadian.

Honestly though, my favorite part of the clip above is the crowd’s reaction to him sinking the first free throw. You can tell they know his struggles and are rooting for the guy to figure it out. Filewich ranks in the top 10 in the conference in fouls drawn (according to KenPom), so even ending up as a 60% free throw shooter for the rest of the year could really help the Terriers.

If you want to catch Filewich in action, Wofford faces VMI next at 6pm Eastern time on Wednesday, February 19th on ESPN+.