Dec. 24—A few days before Gonzaga’s nonconference home swing against Nicholls State and Bucknell, Graham Ike and Braden Huff decided to get in some extra work on their short game after practice at the Volkar Center.
Huff and Ike broke out their clubs — regulation-sized Nike basketballs in this case — wandered over to the first hole — or, free-throw line — and teed it up.
Gonzaga players normally split off to separate baskets and adhere to individual free-throw routines, but from time to time Ike and Huff like to make things interesting and test their accuracy from the line in “free-throw golf.”
There are no tee boxes, no pitching wedges and thankfully no bunkers in this iteration, but there are other elements of the popular pastime. Ike and Huff play a traditional 18 holes, keep a scorecard and employ a conventional scoring method.
Swishes are scored as a minus-2, made free throws that touch any part of the rim are minus-1 and made free throws that ricochet off the back rim/backboard are counted as zero. Any missed free throw is scored as plus-1.
Sitting next to one another during a postgame news conference on Dec. 18, Ike and Huff relived their latest match — an 18-hole thriller that came down to a few clutch shots on the back nine.
“A classic,” Huff said. “Absolute classic.”
“Yesterday was a good battle,” Ike said.
“We had a good battle,” Huff agreed.
“I feel like we’ve got to play more if we’re going to keep shooting the free throws like this,” Ike said.
“I’m just saying, it was a good battle the other day. I won’t speak too much on that,” Huff said, sporting a wry grin.
The final verdict?
“I’m just an honest man,” Ike laughed. “He won on the 18th hole yesterday. It happens.”
By and large, free-throw shooting has been a point of pride for Gonzaga, and a topic the 14th-ranked Zags have no trouble talking about after 12 games. As a team, Gonzaga is making 81.1% of its free throws, ranking No. 7 nationally, No. 1 among Top 25 teams and No. 1 in the West Coast Conference.
That percentage could be misleading if the Zags weren’t attempting free throws at a high clip, but they’ve fared relatively well in that column, too. GU ranks in the top one-third nationally (No. 104), averaging 21.4 free-throw attempts per game. The Zags are No. 1 in the WCC and No. 47 in the NCAA at 17.2 made free throws per game.
History suggests Gonzaga’s percentages will level out before the season ends — only four teams in the country over the past four seasons finished 80% or better from the line — but through more than one-third of the season, the 2024-25 Zags are on track to post one of their highest free-throw percentages of the Mark Few era.
The 26th-year GU coach couldn’t necessarily point to anything tangible that’s led to improved accuracy, suggesting the team hasn’t tweaked its approach to free-throw work at practice. Few did note the addition of transfer guard Khalif Battle, a career 86.3% shooter who came within six free throws of tying Derek Raivio’s program record of consecutive makes to open a season, certainly hasn’t hurt.
“No, I think it’s just by and large,” Few said. “Obviously, when you have a guy who, I don’t know how many he made in a row — 48 or something, 50 — that helps your percentages.”
Battle, who drained 140 consecutive free throws during one practice, according to more than one account, made 50 straight to open the year before missing his first on Dec. 15 against Connecticut at Madison Square Garden. By Battle’s standards, the past three games would amount to a major funk, with the guard making just 7 of 10 from the line against UConn, Nicholls State and Bucknell.
“I’ve seen him miss a few in a row, actually,” senior guard Nolan Hickman said. “I pointed it out to him, but that’s how KB is. He tries to act like nothing happened.”
Battle is only one aspect of GU’s teamwide free-throw improvement, though. The sixth-year guard who previously played at Butler, Temple and Arkansas is shooting free throws at a career-best mark (92.5%), but he’s also one of five rotation players on the roster who can say as much.
“Huff worked hard on it during the offseason because he wasn’t great last year,” Few said. “I think Graham was struggling a little bit at the start of the year, but Graham’s a good free-throw shooter. I think Ryan (Nembhard) worked hard on it, too.”
Sophomore forward Ben Gregg and Nembhard have made the most impressive year-to-year jumps, if accounting for both percentage and volume. Gregg’s attempts have increased from 2.4 to 3.6 per game. The fifth-year senior who shot below 35% from the line his first two seasons and 72.9% last year is now connecting at an 83.7% clip. Nembhard’s averaging nearly one more attempt per game and converting at 86.7% after making 75.2% last season.
As Few alluded, Huff made a concerted effort to raise his percentage after shooting 55.4% from the line last year. The sophomore has attempted only 12 free throws in 12 games, but he’s missed just twice, putting his season percentage at 83.3%.
“For me individually, I think last year was just kind of a big mental block,” Huff said. “It was just in my head and I was just struggling to get out of that. So just put in a lot of work in the offseason, found some confidence and got my routine down. Now it feels pretty good. Everyone has been shooting it well, which is good for us.”
Ike, GU’s leader in attempts at 5.9 per game, is converting at a solid clip of 75.4%. Wing Michael Ajayi has improved his personal percentage from 70.9% to 75.0%, albeit on 3.3 fewer attempts than he took last year while being the focal point of Pepperdine’s offense most nights.
“I think after little drill or workout, I’ll get 10 to 20 free throws,” Ajayi said. “I’ll make 10 in a row, five in a row to move onto the next drill. Then at the end, I’ll try to make at least 25 to 50 free throws after every workout, just trying to build muscle memory.”
Hickman, who hasn’t missed on four free-throw attempts this season, said coaches generally trust Gonzaga players to work independently on free throws, without mandating they make or attempt a certain number before leaving the gym.
“It’s pretty much him telling us we’ve got to get some free throws up,” Hickman said. “It’s never really like an obligation.”
The results indicate Gonzaga’s methods — free-throw work between drills, free-throw work outside of schedule practice hours or the occasional round of free-throw golf — have been effective.
Even if Gonzaga’s current percentage dips to 75% by the end of the season, it would still signify one of the top seven performances of Few’s tenure. The 2005-06 Zags, led by Raivio and Adam Morrison, shot the highest mark by a Few-coached team at 78.2%, but teams shooting under 75% have been the norm at GU, and five have finished below 70%.
Through 12 games, the 2024-25 Zags are on track — on par, if you will — to finish among the best free-throw shooting teams in recent memory, and perhaps still haven’t reached their ceiling.
“Hopefully, that trend will continue to keep going upward and I think that’s a good sign,” Few said. “Very good sign.”
