Indiana Basketball: 3 key areas the Hoosiers must improve on from last season

1. Free Throw Shooting

While most fans may believe three-point shooting needs to be the more pressing improvement from a season ago, it’s not.

With no more Romeo Langford or Juwan Morgan, both of whom shot below 29 percent from deep, those are 213 three-point attempts that are gone, which will only give more opportunities to the likes of Devonte Green and Al Durham.

So now, when it comes to free throws, possession after possession was wasted last season with he horrendous percentage from the line.

Already with a team that struggles to shoot, it’s crucial to be able to find easy points, especially with a roster that isn’t necessarily used to being ‘the guy’ at the college level.

After shooting 66.1 percent as a team last year, ranked 12th in the Big Ten, there was a lot of promise that, with an additional summer, a team that shot 20 free throws a game – 4th in the conference – would be able to start to cash in on some of those opportunities.

Despite the potential, it was again an issue against Marquette in the ‘secret scrimmage’ as the team shot 55.8 percent on 43 attempts. And guess what? The Hoosiers lost by three.

Losing close games was a theme a season ago, and with seven games decided by five or fewer points, the Hoosiers shot below the season average of 66.1 percent in four of the losses.

Obviously other parts of the game impacts the final result, but even if Indiana makes a couple of additional free throws per game and raises that average closer to 70 percent, that will go a long way in winning a few more games this season.