One Kansas Weakness Could Become a Major Problem as the Season Progresses

After a pair of regular-season wins and a preseason where the Kansas Jayhawks showed flashes of greatness, Jayhawk fans are encouraged by the team's progress early on. This is one of the deepest rosters Bill Self has ever led in Lawrence, with a healthy mix of experienced talent and promising youth.

Last night, the Jayhawks thrashed Middle Tennessee State 89-45 for their second win of the year. However, one glaring issue has emerged as a real concern for this group: free throw shooting.
KU has connected on 28-of-52 attempts to kick off the campaign, good for a 53.8% percentage from the charity stripe. That would be a bottom-20 ranking in the nation should it linger and a stark contrast from last year's Kansas squad, which shattered the program's single-season record for the highest free-throw percentage.

While that figure will likely rise over the course of the season, there's reason to believe that the struggles at the foul line will continue to plague the Jayhawks.

Kansas' Free Throw Shooting Early on Has Been Horrendous

This certainly isn't the first time one of Coach Self's teams has had issues converting free throws. It's something that many of his greatest rosters dealt with, but fans were hoping those days had passed after last year's historic percentage.

In the modern game of college basketball where schools are scoring the ball at a historic pace, there is no bigger taboo than leaving this many points at the line. That is simply unacceptable if the coaching staff truly views this group as a national title contender.
The most obvious problem starts with Tyran Stokes, who got to the line almost 13 times a game during the preseason and is currently hitting free throws at a 57.1% clip. However, this is a team-wide thing the Jayhawks are dealing with. As people online have pointed out, Melvin Council Jr. and Taylen Kinney are the only qualified Jayhawks shooting above 70% at the line.

That's probably the most alarming thing in this equation. There is no shortage of Jayhawks who are capable of drawing contact and getting easy trips to the stripe, but that is a major component of their offense. It's not as if they are going to abandon their downhill approach and start shooting jump shots all game.

The Jayhawks don't need to hit close to 80% of their free throws to be successful in the Big 12. Even the 2022-23 national championship-winning team finished at a 72.0% mark by the end of the season, and that was good enough to win it all. Players like Council, Tre White, and Leroy Blyden Jr. own lifetime percentages above 75% and should help balance out their teammates' shortcomings.

Then again, history would suggest that certain players on this roster won't improve much, if at all. Guys like Trey Kaufman-Renn (62.7%), Christian Reeves (62.2%), and Dennis Parker Jr. (61.7%) have never been effective in the free-throw department.

Taking into account that KU's first two contests were against low-level mid-majors at home, the scrutiny around the free-throw shooting is only heightened for the Jayhawks' matchup with Kentucky in the Champions Classic next week. Self and his assistant coaches better have every player perfecting their form and routine at the line every day leading into the game.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/kansas as One Kansas Weakness Could Become a Major Problem as the Season Progresses.