Illinois Basketball: 3 things to watch for in the Illini game against Lindenwood

3. When will the Illini start making free throws

I have been extremely impressed with how the Illinois basketball team has started the 2022-23 campaign. We are 4-1 with the only loss coming in the waning moments against No. 5 Virginia.

There haven’t been too many issues with the Illini thus far either. But there is one issue that hasn’t been a problem yet but could rear its ugly head down the road. That problem is free throw shooting.

On Friday night against Lindenwood, I am going to watch to see if Illinois can start hitting their free throws. They have been a bad free throw shooting team this season, and it is something we need to improve on greatly.

Illinois’ best game this season at the free throw line was against Monmouth. We got to the charity stripe and was 15-of-20, which comes out to 75%. That is our best free throw shooting performance, and 86 DI programs are averaging that number from the free throw line.

For the season, the Illini are shooting 63.6% form the free throw line. That has us sitting at No. 304 out of 363 teams in DI basketball. That is insanely bad.

Now, to make things worse, Illinois is actually one of the highest-volume free throw shooting teams in the country. We are taking 21.4 free throws per game, which ranks No. 81 in the nation.

Illinois is a top 100 team in free throw attempts and a sub-300 team in free throw shooting percentage. That is not a good combination. I want to see if we can start turning that number around against Lindenwood.