GREENSBORO, N.C. – Before Jordan Williams stepped to the free-throw line to take two shots early in the first half against Duke on Friday in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals, he bent his knees and followed through with an imaginary free-throw attempt. His hand uncoiled at the apex of the motion as another perfect free throw swished through — at least, in his mind.
But when the Terrapin men’s basketball forward took the ball moments later, his hopes of visualizing success went unrealized. His first shot clanked off the back rim at the Greensboro Coliseum, as did the one that followed.
It was a mental battle Williams hadn’t won to that point in the game — he had missed his first two free throws — and would rarely win the rest of the night. He missed six straight overall and went just 2-for-10 as the Terps ended their season with an 87-71 loss to Duke.
“I missed eight free throws, which is unacceptable,” Williams said after the game. “I take responsibility for that, and the little things add up. That’s all I can really say, but the little things really add up.”
Williams finished with another healthy double-double (16 points and 16 rebounds), but his misses from the charity stripe ultimately helped Duke keep its lead for much of Friday. But it wasn’t just Williams, as the Terps went 15-for-28 from the free-throw line, paling in comparison to the Blue Devils’ 22 of 27.
It all started just 15 seconds into the game, when Williams drew a foul on Duke guard Seth Curry and went to the line to seemingly open the game’s scoring. But the sophomore missed both, and Duke forward Kyle Singler promptly scored the first points of the game at the other end.
For the rest of the half, as the Terps (19-14) battled back and forth with the Blue Devils, Williams couldn’t quite snap out of a free-throw shooting funk that had plagued him earlier this season.
The misses weighed heavily on Williams, who continually went through his practice motions before each shot.
Four of the five free throws Williams took in the first half would have tied the game or given the Terps a lead. Add in guard Cliff Tucker’s miss, and the Terps were outscored 8-0 from the free-throw line in the first half.
“We’ve been shooting way over 70 percent from the foul line for the last month and a half, and we couldn’t do that tonight,” coach Gary Williams said. “That really hurt us in the first half because we had a chance to move into the lead.”
It was a frustrating end for the 22nd-year coach, who saw his team fall earlier this season to quality opponents on nights marred by poor free-throw shooting. In the 2K Sports Classic in Madison Square Garden in November, the Terps fell to then-No. 5 Pittsburgh in a nine-point loss that saw the team miss nine of 23 free throws, including all seven in the first half.
The Terps shot better than 65 percent from the free-throw line in just seven of the their first 19 games of the season. Along with their inability to close tight games against quality opponents, the Terps’ woes from the free-throw line didn’t seem to go away.
But in the final month of the season, the team improved markedly. In games against Virginia Tech and NC State in late February, the Terps hit 44 of 49 free throws (89 percent), including an impressive 8-for-9 combined performance by Williams.
So whenever the topic arose late this season, Gary Williams habitually dismissed it as a nonissue. But in the season’s decisive — and ultimately last — game, the Terps’ shooting woes again gave way to yet another double-digit loss to Duke.
“It’s tough,” Jordan Williams said. “It just didn’t go our way.”
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