For the few/many* of you who have joined us for a basketball game thread, you might have noticed my fascination with a fairly simply toy called The Bill James Lead Calculator. Basic premise: when has the fat lady mathematically began her song?
The interesting thing about it's application to the 2008-09 Penn State basketball team is that the Nittany Lions have straight up defied mathematics with their inability to hit a free throw.
The team is shooting a league worst 65%, even after a solid performance against Minnesota (75%).
Where things get ugly, and usually painful, is watching opposing coaches use the Hack-A-Team strategy flawlessly to climb back out of the hole Penn State put them in. However, against Minnesota, there was for some reason a strange sense of confidence at the line that we haven't seen all season.
A look at the FTs to end the game last weekend (note a "Win%" of 1 is consider a lock):
| Time | Play | PSU Lead | Win% +/- |
| 1:43 | David Jackson made free throw | 1 | +0.04 |
| 0:57 | Talor Battle missed free throw | 4 | -0.04 |
| 0:37 | Talor Battle made free throw | 5 | +0.04 |
| 0:37 | Talor Battle made free throw | 6 | +0.12 |
| 0:26 | Jamelle Cornley made free throw | 7 | +0.23 |
| 0:26 | Jamelle Cornley missed free throw | 7 | -0.31 |
| 0:24 | David Jackson made free throw | 7 | +0.25 |
| 0:24 | David Jackson made free throw | 8 | +0.33 |
| 0:09 | Stanley Pringle made free throw | 6 | +0.44 |
| 0:09 | Stanley Pringle made free throw | 7 | +0.31 |
That is a total gain of 176% and a total loss of 35%. Now you aren't going to hit every free one, and a five to one ratio of cluchyness isn't bad at all.
Now compare that to the end game against Georgia Tech:
| Time | Play | PSU Lead | Win% +/- |
| 0:44 | Talor Battle missed free throw | 5 | -0.22 |
| 0:27 | David Jackson missed free throw | 5 | -0.13 |
| 0:15 | Stanley Pringle made free throw | 4 | +0.15 |
| 0:06 | Jamelle Cornley missed free throw | 2 | -0.04 |
| 0:06 | Jamelle Cornley missed free throw | 2 | -0.04 |
A total gain of just 15% and a total loss of 43%. That is the definition of allowing FTs to kill you. It's also a lot less fun to watch.
*Depends on the game, really, and definitely which direction the team is trending. The last five game alone our live-thread comment total has gone as low as 47 and as high as 509.