Grant Williams scored a career-high 43 points against Vanderbilt in overtime, and he did it primarily from the free throw line. Williams was 23-23 from the charity stripe, tying and setting a new UT record.
On top of that, Williams also set a new conference record for the amount of free throws made in a game without a miss.
Making all those free throws in a row is quite a challenge, but exactly how difficult was it?
I'll be completely honest, I am not the best when it comes to math and problems stemming from it, but a quick Google search will help you find a solution.
Grant Williams had a 0.96% chance of making 23 consecutive free throws.
That's less than 1 percent.
Let's show our work.
If we make the assumption that the probability Grant Williams makes any free throw in the game against Vanderbilt is equal to his free throw percentage for the season prior to the game beginning (he was shooting 81.7% from the line, 103/126 overall) all we have to do is multiply it by itself each time he shoots a free throw. Essentially, .817 x .817 x .817 x .817 x .817 x .817 x .817 and so on, or .817 raised to the 23rd power. It also makes the assumption that each free throw is an independent action, not impacted by the free throws around it. Of course, we know if you get on a hot streak, it can make it easier for the player, but that's not something that is easy to quantify in a math equation.
And for those skeptical of that math, we did confirm both the process and results were correct with the statistics department in the Haslam College of Business at UT.
So, Grant Williams had less than a 1 percent chance to make 23 consecutive free throws without a miss against Vanderbilt on Wednesday. Maybe there was a little bit of luck involved, but no doubt Grant Williams showed he had plenty of skill to compete with anyone in the country.
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