Here’s one thing you’ll hear a lot this week: The Memphis Tigers can’t shoot free throws.

Here’s one thing you probably won’t hear this week (except here, of course): Nobody else in the South Regional can, either.

For all the hand-wringing about Memphis’ free-throw woes, which I’ve talked about constantly as completely overblown and statistically insignificant, I haven’t read or heard a word this week about how Memphis’ potential opponents shoot free throws. So I went and looked it up. Here’s what I found.

Mississippi State: 64.4%
Texas Arlington: 65.8%
Pittsburgh: 65.8%
St. Mary’s: 66.5%
Oregon: 68.9%
Texas: 68.9%
Stanford: 69.6%

All of those teams are in the South Regional. All of those teams are ranked 150th or worse in the country in free throw percentage. Stanford shoots exactly 10% better from the line than Memphis. So if they played, say, in the Elite Eight and the free-throw percentages held to form, you’re talking about a two-point advantage for Stanford if both teams shot 20 free throws. Stanford would be expected to make 14-of-20 in that scenario, while Memphis would be expected to make 12-of-20.

So why, again, does this seem to be such an important issue?