UNC Basketball Summer Stats Series: Free Throw Percentage

Part four of the 2022 UNC Basketball Summer Stats Series, looking back at a specific stat category from last season and projecting what to expect for 2022-23. Today’s category: free throw shooting.

Here’s the bottom line: under the direction of first-year head coach Hubert Davis, one of the greatest shooters in NBA history,  the 2021-22 North Carolina Tar Heels achieved the second-highest team free throw percentage (76.4%) in program history.

The coaching staff can’t come out and make free throws for the team, but at least some amount of credit is due to Coach Davis and Coach Jeff Lebo, both of whom shot over 80% in their Tar Heel careers and are top-20 all-time in the program.

The only team with a better percentage on the freebies the Coach Davis’ first team? The 1983-84 Tar Heels, who hit 78.3% of their free throws.

Part of the reason for UNC’s success last season is that three of the starters (Leaky Black, Caleb Love, and RJ Davis) each shot over 80% from the free throw line. In fact, if I asked you to name the Tar Heel with the highest free throw percentage on the team (min. 10 attempts), you would likely guess Love or Davis. I wouldn’t blame you for doing so, however you would be wrong. The correct answer is Leaky Black, who 86.8% of his 38 free throw attempts.

Love was just behind Black at 86.1% (136-158) with Davis trailing in third at 83.3% (105-126). While Black’s percentage was higher, Love and Davis’ achievements were more impressive given their higher number of attempts.

Not only was last year’s team the second-best free throw shooting team in program history, they had the biggest leap in percentage points from one year to the next in Carolina history. The season before, 2020-21, was the third-lowest team free throw percentage of the Roy Williams era (66.8%), ahead of only 2009-10 (65.3%) and 2013-14 (62.6%). The 2021-22 Tar Heels jumped up 9.6 percentage points from that 66.8% to their 76.4% total.

My assessment of the reason for the immediate jump above all 18 of Roy Williams’ teams, aside from the Coach Davis / Coach Lebo aspect, is the lineup shift away from two bigs to one traditional center. This shift gives you the opportunity to have more good shooters taking a higher percentage of the team’s free throws, since traditional bigs are typically lesser free throw shooters.

PROJECTING 2022-23

As we look to the 2022-23 season, perhaps the most interesting piece of free throw shooting news is that Pete Nance is essentially…