Though Ball State University suffered a 63-57 loss to Eastern Michigan University Saturday afternoon, the team felt it had its opportunities to win the game.
In fact, coach Kelly Packard believes the Cardinals had 15 points worth of opportunities to capture a victory against the Eagles.
This season, Ball State has been converting just more than 73 percent of its shots from the foul line – fourth best in the Mid-American Conference – but shot 12-of-27 (44.4 percent) from the foul line in Saturday's loss to the Eagles.
"We've been a really solid free-throw shooters this season and it's really just perplexing," Packard said. "It wasn't one person taking a large majority. We left a lot of points off the board today."
Packard felt that had Ball State had converted from the foul line against Eastern Michigan, the final outcome could've been switched.
"I don't want to take anything away from [Eastern Michigan]," Packard said. "But when we have 15 points available to us, we usually shoot better than that."
Perhaps most surprisingly, senior guard Audrey McDonald – shooting 90 percent from the line this season – missed her first free-throw attempt of the game. The rest of the team followed in a similar fashion.
Packard believes the reason for the missed foul shots was influenced by the team's confidence.
"I think our lack of confidence hasn't healed completely yet," Packard said. "We still can get shaken with something like that happens."
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