Thursday, Jan. 2, 2003 | 9:17 a.m.
NEXT UP
What: Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne (2-12) at UNLV (8-2)
When: Today, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Thomas & Mack
TV: None
Radio: KBAD 920-AM
Should certain Rebels soon spot a 60-something-year-old stranger at practice, they would be wise to develop a sudden sense of urgency to fine-tune their free-throw touches and avoid a major embarrassment.
If UNLV (8-2) continues to struggle at the stripe tonight against Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne (2-12), and in its next two non-conference games, Rebels coach Charlie Spoonhour might search for an old acquaintance for some help.
When Spoonhour coached at Southwest Missouri State, a free-throw shooting sharpie was once hired as a halftime performer.
Spoonhour put the older gentleman to work even earlier. Some of Spoonhour's players were struggling at the line, so he arranged for the freebie marksman to conveniently, and quietly, appear at a practice.
One of the Bears missed a free throw, and Spoonhour capitalized on the situation.
"I could go up into the stands and find any old man who could shoot better than you, like that old man over there," Spoonhour bellowed to his players. "I don't even know who he is. Never met him."
The older man, whose name Spoonhour could not recall, sank seven consecutive free throws
"With this funny-looking shot he hit seven in a row," said Spoonhour, 63. "Our guys just started laughing. They knew something was going on. He had held a national record for free throws. I'm guessing he was my age now. He had the funniest-looking thing, a push shot. Just knocked them down."
For a coach who admits to worrying about every aspect of his team, anyway, the Rebels' woes with their free throws, as well as a variety of defensive lapses, are currently Spoonhour's biggest concerns.
UNLV is making 64.3 percent of its free throws, compared to a 71.4 percent success rate last season. Only Air Force, recently at 61.8 percent, shoots the easy ones at a worse clip in the Mountain West Conference.
Spoonhour is fortunate to have Dalron Johnson, whose 85.8-percent rate at the line last season placed him fifth on the Rebels' single-season chart. Johnson made 87.8 percent of his free throws in this season's first 10 games, which would give him the third spot and knock last season's mark to sixth.
"Dalron is excellent," Spoonhour said. "Our teams have always been pretty good at the line. At least, we've never had a team where free throws became a huge issue. If a guy has a glaring error, then you talk to him. But most of these guys have been pretty good free throw shooters, so I just expect us to make them."
The Rebels' first three games in the league will be at Brigham Young (Jan. 16), at home against Utah (Jan. 20) and at Air force (Jan. 25), the three stingiest teams to score on -- at 61.1, 58.2 and 57.1 points, respectively -- in the conference.
Obviously, every point in those battles will be critical.
"I feel that we'll hit our free throws by (the start of) conference," said junior center J.K. Edwards, who has the dubious distinction of shooting better from the field (.592) than he does at the line (.452).
"The severity of the game will come around and we'll realize we have to hit them, and we should knock them down."
One of the Rebels' victories was by three points and a pair were by two, with one of those coming in overtime.
Sunday night, they made only 13 of 29 (44.8 percent) free throws -- the worst single-game effort in Spoonhour's two-year reign in Las Vegas -- in a 79-78 win over Southern Methodist.
"If you're going to have close games, which we've been having, free throws are quite an issue," Spoonhour said. "With SMU the other night, had we hit our free throws it would not have been a close game. We would have closed out and probably felt a little better about ourselves."
After going 6-for-6 at the line against the Mustangs, senior point guard Marcus Banks played all 20 minutes of the second half and missed his last three free throws that could have provided the Rebels with some breathing room.
Banks has hit 71 percent of his free throws over his two-year career as a Rebel.
"He said it was concentration, but I'm not so sure it was that," Spoonhour said. "He had been out on the floor a long time. Then you miss one and you start thinking, and that's the problem you get into ... when you start thinking."
That's where the problem starts with Edwards and guard Demetrius Hunter, who also has a better shot from the field (.415) than he does at the line (.316).
Those are the two UNLV starters who are not sinking at least 70 percent of their free-throw attempts. Senior forward Dalron Johnson, at 87.8 percent, is the ace of the first five.
"With me, personally, it's just a mental thing. I'm thinking, 'I better not miss.' It's mental," Hunter said.
"It's a straight mental thing," Edwards said. "I really don't know what's going on. It's straight mental."
Hunter sank 68.8 percent of his free throws in two seasons at Georgetown, and he said sitting out last season, because of NCAA transfer rules, is partly to blame for his cold touch.
Rebels assistant coach Derek Thomas spotted a glitch in Hunter's mechanics, a penchant for adding a movement with his elbow and/or wrist that doesn't exist when he goes straight up and shoots from the wing.
In addition, Thomas noticed that Hunter played with the ball too much, spinning or rolling it, at the line.
"The less movement, the better," Thomas said. "You also have to be confident, too. That's the main thing. He has to be confident. Hopefully, he is."
Spoonhour said Edwards made about 60 percent of his free throws at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa, so the transition to Division I competition and crowds factor into the equation.
Wednesday morning, UNLV assistant coach Deane Martin ran Edwards through drills in which Edwards ran sprints, shot 10 free throws, ran more sprints, shot 10 more free throws, and so on, until Edwards had attempted 50 free throws.
Edwards sank 36 of them.
"I'm working on it every day, before and after practice," Edwards said. "Hopefully, I'll be out of this slump soon. I'm thinking about it too much. I just have to try to get into a rhythm, step up there and knock them down every time I shoot them."
Free throws are funny, Spoonhour said. For some reason, the first players who take them in a game set the tone for the rest of the team. A guy misses, and it puts the onus on everyone else. Spoonhour has noticed that all his life.
Also, they're most often talked about when they're not being converted.
To truly laugh, however, is to watch a 60-something character with an odd push of a release connect on six or seven free throws in a row. Some Rebels, however, could use a tip or two, if not the inspiration.
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