If you tuned into the Florida’s game against East Tennessee State on Thursday, you likely saw Florida guard Canyon Barry taking (and making) his free throws underhanded.
Canyon Barry shoots free throws underhanded like his dad, and it’s working
An old family trick has worked well for the Florida guard.
This is not a gimmick. Barry takes granny-style foul shots all the time, and the reason it’s such a spectacle is that he’s really, really good at it. Barry entered Thursday shooting 88 percent this year at the line, in his first year since transferring to UF from the College of Charleston. He’s made his free throws an art form.
The underhand foul shot is very much a family thing. Barry’s father is Rick Barry, the former NBA player who became synonymous with that shooting form.
But the underhand free throw has more or less died off in the major college and professional game. Canyon Berry isn’t the first player at a big-time school to use it recently, but he’s the first one to do it well in a while:
The underhand free throw has essentially been dead since papa Barry retired. Terrible free-throw shooters like Shaq and Andre Drummond publicly disparaged the idea. It was only last year that Louisville big man Chinanu Onuaku brought it back to the mainstream at the college level and then in the NBA during his limited minutes as a rookie.
Onuaku used the underhand technique just to give himself a chance — he ended his college career as a 54.7 percent shooter from the stripe. Barry, meanwhile, is shooting free throws about as accurately as anyone in college basketball. He’s 87-for-97 on the season.
Two of Rick Barry’s other sons, Jon and Brent, had careers as NBA role players. They didn’t shoot like their dad did, but Canyon does, and it’s been a brilliant idea for him. He started doing it as a junior in high school. He told the New York Times this year:
“The repetition has kicked in to where I feel like every time I step to the line, I should be making both of them. You kind of get mad at yourself every time you miss one now.”
During his three-year, pre-transfer career at C of C, Canyon Barry wasn’t an outstanding foul shooter. He was good, but he shot in the 70 percent range for his first two years, then moved up to 84 percent as a junior. This year, he’s been stellar.
Charles Barkley saw what Canyon was doing and decided to offer the country a tutorial on the underhanded free throw. It’s as good as you’d expect.
See More:
