ACC Free Throw Woes – Yahoo Sports

Earlier this season we marveled at the stunning rise in free throw accuracy sweeping the ACC. Only one team made fewer than 70 percent of its shots from the line in each of the last three seasons, truly remarkable efficiency. That even as the league added three more members in 2025.

Was some new, unpublicized foul shooting technique sweeping the ACC? Was players’ year-round competition yielding more polished play? Were the official balls and rims used in league games equipped with a homing device synced with a player’s foot toeing the foul line?

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Well, no need to wonder any longer.

Whatever worked so well for ACC squads on free throws from 2023 through 2025 has vanished, even as the ACC has recovered much of its former prowess overall.

As the ’26 league season pivots toward its final few weeks, embrace of the art of free throw shooting appears to be in precipitous decline. Seven of 18 teams, .389 percent of ACC members, were hitting at fewer than 70 percent after playing at least two dozen games.

Included is one team, North Carolina, certain to make the NCAA Tournament while hitting .692 from the line at mid-February, and a second, Miami (.678), that may have secured an NCAA berth last week. First the Canes beat UNC — a game in which Tar Heel wunderkind Caleb Wilson broke his hand – and then NC State at Raleigh. Miami’s 1-point victory over the Wolfpack was secured when junior Tru Washington, fouled on a bonusphere bomb, made three free throws with 3.7 seconds left.

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The ACC’s other aggregates of wobbly foul shooters: Georgia Tech (.691), Notre Dame (.692), BC (.653), and Syracuse (.638).

Syracuse, trailing the league field in foul shooting throughout the season, is in danger of registering the ACC’s worst efficiency in the past dozen years, since Roy Williams’ UNC squad hit only .626 from the line in 2014. This is not good news for coach Adrian Autry.

“Red” Autry was a .748 foul shooter while playing point for the Orange under Jim Boeheim (1991-94). When Boeheim retired following the 2023 season, Autry took over. The former assistant’s first team posted a 20-12 record. Things haven’t gone well since, and he’s included when commentators list ACC coaches on the hot seat.

Syracuse had a losing record last year, and while this season it hung around .500 within the league through Lincoln’s Birthday (Feb. 12), it was tied for 10^th in the ACC with Cal and Stanford, including losses in six of seven games from mid-January to early February. Hardly an NCAA Tournament profile – for the fifth straight season.

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Not helping matters, starters JJ Starling (.544) and William Kyle III (.489) are among the least accurate foul shooters in the ACC. (Duke fans take note: Three Blue Devil regulars – Caleb Foster, Damon Sarr, and Maliq Brown — stand among the league’s most feckless free throwers, a dangerous weakness.)

During Syracuse’s losing spiral Autry drew national attention by benching freshman Kiyan Anthony, son of legend Carmelo Anthony, leader of the school’s 2003 NCAA title team. That decision followed a defeat at UNC that sparked the elder Anthony to post “SMFH” on Instagram. Widely cited, the acronym, meaning “Shaking My Fucking Head”, didn’t reflect well on Autry’s coaching, to say the least.

Missed free throws proved a fatal flaw for Syracuse repeatedly this year, although it most recently topped SMU by a point after converting 14 of 18 from the line (.778). Notably, the Orange went 9-16 from the stripe at home in an early loss to low-profile Hofstra (currently rated 102 by KenPom) and missed 17 of 29 in a November OT defeat against national power Houston, an arresting triumph that could have established an entirely different tone for the season.

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