in hindsight the 03 game jsut wasnt that great. the ending was uglyyyy!! missed shots, poor rebounding to's!!! (combined 35 yikes), gmac avoiding ball contact the last 5 min, free throws!! we scored 28 points in the 2nd half while they were actively fouling us. we scored like 3 points in the last 6 minutes.
although i found this article which was interesting
I was perusing through KenPom.com on Tuesday (imagine that) and stumbled across something I thought was extremely interesting. As most everyone around here knows ...
www2.kusports.com
Kansas went 12-30 from the line, and missed the front end of 2 one-and-ones. Effectively, that is 12-32. However, Kansas also scored 6 points via offensive rebounds on their missed free throws.* So, effectively, Kansas produced 18 points from 32 free throw attempts.
Syracuse went 10-17 from the line. They also missed the front end of 1 one-and-one, and scored zero points from offensive rebounds on missed free throws. So, effectively, Syracuse produced 10 points from 18 free throw attempts.
Kansas: 18-32 for an efficiency rate of 0.5625 per free throw Syracuse: 10-18 for an efficiency rate of 0.5556 per free throw
Thus, Kansas was actually slightly more efficient in terms of effective points per free throw attempt than Syracuse.
The 2003 national title game was actually won and lost at the three-point line, not the free throw line. Syracuse shot 11-18 beyond the arc, while Kansas went only 4-20. Whether or not you consider that to be luck might be another matter. However, as a Syracuse fan and a number cruncher, I feel a lot more comfortable discussing Syracuse’s timely three-point shooting than the illusion of Kansas choking from the line.