John Daly explains his free throw advice to Arkansas, Eric Musselman
Former Arkansas and now professional golfer John Daly believes his advice played a role in helping the Razorbacks reach the Sweet Sixteen. After watching the team struggle with free throw shooting this season, Daly suggested a golf putting drill for coach Eric Musselman to practice with his team.
It seemed to work, as Arkansas shot 21-of-26 (80.8%) from the strip Saturday in a 72-71 upset of No. 1 seed Kansas. In an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday, Daly revealed what he noticed from the Razorbacks this season and how he believes his suggestion helped them improve.
“I watch every game that I can and I love everybody of our sports,” Daly said. “I try to watch everything Razorbacks. But I told him, ‘look, coach. We’re losing games because of our free throws.’ I told him to take a plastic cup and a golf ball and put it about 10 feet from the cub and have all the guys put that in. That’s called a ‘gimme.’ That’s what free throws are supposed to be.
“We lost eight or nine games this season because of free throws. To see Council make them or Mitchell, Walsh and Black start making these free throws, that’s just given points. It cost us a few games and now, what they did against Kansas hitting those free throws, that’s what won it for ’em.”
Arkansas shot just 69.6% on its free throws during the regular season, tied for just 10th in the SEC. However, in its two NCAA Tournament wins this season, it has made more than 75% of its foul shots.
The win against the Jayhawks helped the Razorbacks to reach their third consecutive Sweet Sixteen under Musselman. Now Arkansas will look to continue to heed the advice of John Daly as it enters a matchup against No. 4 seed UConn at 6:15 p.m. CT on Thursday.
Eric Musselman reacts to coaching advice from John Daly
Following the big win against Kansas, Musselman made sure to give credit to Daly for the role he played in helping the Razorbacks improve their free throw shooting.
The Arkansas coach admitted he was already getting calls and texts from Daly, and promised that he’d call him back before the team got on their flight home.
“Really good,” said Muss about his upcoming message to Daly. “He tried calling me, got a couple texts already. Before we hit the plane I’ll try to call John. You know, he’s been texting me even drills. Like he wanted our guys to get a putter out and hit a ball into a cup. We haven’t tried it yet, luckily we’ve been making foul shots. But I know the state of Arkansas is on fire right now and I know John Daly’s pretty pumped up too.”
The win was the second-straight year that Arkansas played bracket buster by eliminating a tournament one-seed, having done the same to Gonzaga last season. It also wasn’t the first time that Musselman shared details of his relationship with Daly, as he shared that they had first talked about free throws after their first round win over Illinois.
“He was very happy with our free throw shooting. That’s not a joke,” said Musselman after that win. “I really do get several texts, and sometimes we do converse, believe it or not, late night on our lack of free throw shooting. I sent him — just so everybody knows, I did send him several of your guys’ Tweets, and I think he felt good about that, too, that we acknowledged him in a press conference.”
On3’s Austin Brezina contributed to this report.