Gophers rank 350th in the country in free-throw shooting
It's not totally clear how many bricks are on the outside of Williams Arena, but this year's men's basketball team could build a brand new stadium with the number of bricks they're throwing up on free-throw attempts this season.
There are 352 Division I teams in the country.
The Gophers rank 350th in free-throw shooting percentage, coming in at an ugly 55.9%. If you're curious, there are 352 Division I teams in the nation. McNeese State is worst in the country at 54.2% and Brown is second worst at 55.7%, just barely better than Minnesota.
The Gophers have shot 177 free throws and only 99 have gone in, including 15 of 24 in their 90-75 loss to Michigan Thursday night, which actually helped them move up from 351 to 350th in the country.
McNeese State plays in the Southland Conference and Brown University is an Ivy League school, so not exactly a Power Five team like the Gophers in the Big Ten.
The next worst free-throw shooting team from a Power Five conference is Mississippi State at 62.2% from the charity stripe. As fate would have it, the Gophers host Mississippi State at Williams Arena on Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
Unlike the Gophers, who are 4-5 this season, Mississippi State is ranked 23rd in the country and is a perfect 8-0.
Here are Minnesota's player-by-player free-throw percentages.
- Jamison Battle: 77.8%
- Jaden Henley: 68.8%
- Dawson Garcia: 64.5%
- Treyton Thompson: 60%
- Braedon Carrington: 58.8%
- Joshua Ola-Joseph: 52.6%
- Ta'lon Cooper: 51.2%
- Pharrel Payne: 44.4%
- Taurus Samuels: 42.9%
- Will Ramburg: 40%
Cooper and Payne are really weighing down the team percentage because they've combined to take 68 of Minnesota's 177 free throws. That's 38% of the freebies and their combined 35 misses account for about 45% of the team's 78 misses.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.