Let's take a look at how BYU's leading FT shooters (as measured only by FT attempts) have fared relative to the rest of the team by season. I've listed all FT shooters that had 100 or more attempts in a season. The only exception is 2005 when no one had over 100 attempts and Mike Hall had 95.
Sum of players with 100+ FTA
Code:
Player Year FT FTA FT% Diff
Wesley 2001 179 222 0.806 0.061
Lyday 2001 162 197 0.822 0.077
Hansen 2002 138 182 0.758 0.013
Bigelow 2002 106 132 0.803 0.058
Hansen 2003 163 204 0.799 0.084
Bigelow 2003 93 112 0.830 0.115
Araujo 2004 122 169 0.722 0.041
Bigelow 2004 104 129 0.806 0.125
Hall 2004 98 134 0.731 0.050
Hall 2005 74 95 0.779 0.070
Trent 2006 106 172 0.616 -0.135
Trent 2007 96 195 0.492 -0.201
Young 2007 118 147 0.803 0.109
Note the "Diff" column to see how much better they shot than the sub-100 FTA guys collectively did. Who's the ONLY person in that list to shoot worse than the remainder of the team as a whole? That's a HUGE difference compared to other past FT team leaders.
Sum of players with less than 100 FTA:
Code:
Year FT FTA FT%
2001 310 416 0.745
2002 280 376 0.745
2003 319 446 0.715
2004 177 260 0.681
2005 304 429 0.709
2006 335 446 0.751
2007 240 346 0.694
Two of the worst FT shooters this year with less than 100 FTA were Balderson (62.8%) and Broadus (58.3%) and they don't return next year.
So the key to success primarily rests on the shoulders of one or two FT shooters because the remaining group's numbers have been
relatively stable.