The 2023-2024 Kansas Jayhawks' free throw shooting is quietly the best in KU history

For decades and decades, the Kansas Jayhawks have been one of the best basketball programs in the NCAA. Despite the tremendous amount of high-level talent throughout the years, one constant question mark for the Jayhawks has been free throw shooting. Luckily, the 2023-2024 version of Kansas basketball has broken this trend. This season, the Jayhawks currently have the highest free throw percentage in their program’s history at 74.0%.

This mark is good for 78th in the NCAA currently and is the first time that the Jayhawks have been ranked in the top 100 in free throw shooting percentage since the 2014-2015 season when they ranked 67th. Prior to this year, Kansas has only shot 72%+ from the charity stripe twice in the last decade.

• 2023-2024 - 13.6 / 18.4 (74.0%)
• 2022-2023 - 12.8 / 17.8 (72.0%)
• 2021-2022 - 13.9 / 19.4 (71.7%)
• 2020-2021 - 12.9 / 18.0 (71.6%)
• 2019-2020 - 13.3 / 19.9 (66.7%)
• 2018-2019 - 13.5 / 19.2 (70.5%)
• 2017-2018 - 11.6 / 16.4 (70.8%)
• 2016-2017 - 14.9 / 21.9 (67.8%)
• 2015-2016 - 15.8 / 22.2 (71.3%)
• 2014-2015 - 16.9 / 23.4 (72.4%)

This season, Kevin McCullar Jr. leads the team with 91 made free throws and he is shooting them at an 84.7% clip. Freshman guards Elmarko Jackson and Jamari McDowell have also both been phenomenal from the line on limited attempts, shooting a combined 33/39 (84.6%). Meanwhile, Dajuan Harris Jr. and Hunter Dickinson are fairly reliable as well, connecting on 72.0% and 70.8% of their attempts, respectively.

The one question mark this season is KJ Adams Jr., who struggles to consistently make free throws. He shoots a very shaky 57.9%, making his “throws” anything but free. Adams Jr. does look set to see his percentage continue to rise, considering he began this season by making just two of his first 13 attempts. Since then, he has connected on 31-of-44 free throws, which is a more manageable 70.5% rate. If Adams Jr. can keep that up the rest of the season, these Jayhawks are poised to be much more reliable from the line than KU fans are used to.