Rock Island Today

Hundreds of times each day, Nolan Ebel goes to the line and takes his shots.

Free throws are a big part of his daily life: he shoots them before, during and after his individual workouts, he told Rock Island Today. As a high school player in Colorado, Ebel took plenty of free throws, as well. But his aforementioned routine has elevated that part of his game since coming to Augustana.

“From the way I went about free throws, not much has changed, but from a confidence standpoint I

feel like I'm extremely more prepared because I know that I've practiced it enough to where I feel a lot more confident,” he said. 

That assurance at the line has put the Vikings' sophomore point guard among the nation's leaders. Going into the games of Jan. 25, Ebel ranked eighth in all of NCAA Division III with a free throw percentage of 92.5 in 17 games, according to the NCAA's website.

His march up that chart has been matched in many ways by the rest of his game. Including the Vikings' 87-76 win over Elmhurst on Jan. 25 at home, Ebel had per-game averages of 10.4 points, 3.6 assists and 2.9 rebounds.

Those all represent big jumps over last season -- his first with Augustana -- when he averaged 1.4 points and 0.6 rebounds in 3.6 minutes per game, according to the men's basketball record book on Augustana's athletic website.

Ebel said he was basically born into basketball. His father played basketball, as did his older brother.

“I kind of grew up with a ball in my hand,” he said.

According to a news release, Ebel as a senior averaged 6.2 points and two rebounds a game -- along with a free throw percentage of 78.8 -- as a key player for Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado. His team went 23-3 in the 2014-15 season.

Alex Washington, then an assistant men's basketball coach at Augustana, reached out to Ebel through Twitter, Ebel said. Washington told him that the coach had heard about Ebel from a fellow coach who saw Ebel play at a tournament in Arizona. Ebel was not sure how to take the attention at first.

“Honestly, I didn't really take him seriously,” he said.

However, Ebel found out just how serious Augustana was about bringing him to Rock Island. He said he was flown in to check out the campus, and he fell in love with the school and the people.

Ebel said his routine starts before the team's practice. He starts each workout by shooting 100-200 free throws. After his workout, he shoots 200-300 free throws. Sometimes, he will shoot free throws during the workout as well, under the eye of skills coach Jordan Delp.

Mixing free throw shooting with getting tired out from a workout helps to create a realistic game situation, he said.

“We've kind of realized that as a point guard in a physical league (College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), I'm going to be getting fouled a lot,” Ebel said. “So it's important to add those free throws in there so that in crunch time, (Head) Coach (Grey Giovanine) has confidence in me that I can be the guy to go to the line and knock some shots down.”