NC State's Free Throw Defense Sucks

NC State opponents have made 72.6% of their free throw attempts this season, which puts the Pack in rather unfortunate company in terms of the whole "free throw defense" thing. For lack of a better way of putting it, State ranks 322nd nationally in free throw defense. This, sadly, is not unusual. The hysterical thing about it is the total random nature of free throw shooting, and NC State has been on the short end to a greater degree than any other ACC program over the last five seasons. Insert any and all shrugs here.

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In three of the last five years, NC State's free throw D ranked worse than 300th nationally. Over that same time span, the other 11 ACC teams combined for five instances of sub-300 rankings. So NC State has by itself accounted for more than a third of the ACC's sub-300 seasons in the last five years.

This is a perfect microcosm of sports. You can run good or bad for a certain span of time with no guarantee whatsoever that things will bounce proportionately in the opposite direction. This is also why sports are awesome and the absolute worst at the same time. Sometimes Milton Jennings will miss the front end of a crucial one-and-one. Sometimes he'll knock down a pair and send Pack fans into full-on panic mode.