Dan Rough Puts Game On The Line

Dan Rough watches all of them. They are the best in the game he loves the best. He sees players like Shaquille O'Neal and Scottie Pippen doing things he can only imagine doing.

The whirling dunks. The gravity-defying drives to the basket. The jump hooks over 7-footers.

And then Rough, a 6-foot-1 junior guard from Whitman College, watches them toe the free-throw line. And he sees some of the greatest athletes in the world turn to mush.

If O'Neal is Superman, the free-throw line is his Kryptonite. If Pippen plays with the grace of a Greek god, the foul line is his Achilles.

Rough sees the nervous faces, the inconsistent releases, the changing routines, the poor percentages and can't believe any of it.

Even in the NBA, there is no such thing as a free throw.

"It blows me away that professional athletes could have such a poor percentage, when they are playing basketball so much more often than I am," Rough says. "They have a ball in their hand that much more often than I do.

"It seems like their free-throw average should just get better naturally, just from pure practice. I don't get why that hasn't been true."

Rough knows free throws. He recently set the NAIA Division II record, making 60 in a row. He has missed only three this season, making 92 percent.

A math major who was valedictorian of his class at Port Townsend High School, Rough is a literal thinker. When he steps to the foul line he isn't pondering the consequences of his shot. He is thinking about the mechanics.

"It's all muscle memory," Rough says. "I know how to do it, so it's just a matter of getting into that system and then it kind of just does it automatically."

Consistency is the secret to free-throw shooting. Rough's routine never varies. He sets his right foot on the nail in the floor that is in the middle of the free throw line. He takes one dribble and pauses. He takes two more dribbles, then another dribble, then another pause. He takes a breath, looks at the hoop and shoots.

Most players search for ways to approximate game conditions while shooting free throws in practice. Rough has a better idea. He approximates practice conditions during games.

"When I shoot free throws by myself in practice, I count," Rough says. "Twenty-four, 25. So, in games, when the referee hands me the ball, I'll say to myself, `24.' Then I shoot it and that's 25. Then I get the ball back and the next one's 26.

"I try to pretend as if I were practicing and just trying to do consecutive free throws. I try to put it in the practice mode and not worry about the fans, or the pressure or that kind of thing."

If he cared enough, O'Neal would call Dan Rough. He would pay attention to the free throws. He would understand their importance. He would work at that one weak part of his game.

"If he asked, the first thing I would do is not work on the free throws, but work on the shot itself," Rough says. "The mechanics of that. Then go back and try to set up some kind of pattern, some kind of ritual at the line."

It is lonely at the line. Just you, the ball and the basket. That should make it easier. No hand in your face. No double-teaming defender racing at you.

The points should come easier than they do. Rough, the math major, can't believe some of the NBA's free-throw numbers.

The Lakers' O'Neal is shooting 46.8 from the line. Seattle's center Jim McIlvaine has made only 46.4 percent of his free throws and Chicago's Pippen only 66.2.

The Lakers, the team with the best record in the West, is the poorest in the league from the line at 64.8. And the Washington Bullets make only 69 percent.

Free-throw shooting doesn't make SportsCenter highlights. You don't see Nike commercials shot from the foul line. There is no glamour in the free throw and that is part of its problem.

Free throws might win games, but they don't win endorsements.

"It blows me away that they can get away with that," Rough says. "I don't see how it's possible to have basketball be your life and have such a simple thing as the free throw be that difficult."

Practice, repetition, muscle memory. It all sounds so logical, so simple.

It makes you wonder why so many players find free-throw shooting so difficult to do.