Louisville Player Casually Knocking Down Granny Style Free Throws

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Meet Chinanu Onuaku. Fire name, beast in the paint…

…Granny Style free throw shooter.

Onuaku blew up Twitter last night with everyone making fun of him, lots of crying-face emojis going on on my timeline. Louisville fans know he’s been doing this for a while though:

At first, I thought it was a joke. At the end of a recent Louisville basketball practice, the players spread around to different hoops in the practice facility to work on their free throw shooting.

There, by himself, was Chinanu Onuaku, shooting the ball underhanded.

“No, no,” Louisville coach Rick Pitino explained. “That’s how he’s doing it now.”

A 6-foot-10, Division I basketball player going straight-up granny style at the free throw line? Yes, the hecklers are going to have a field day with this one.

“Oh, I know they’ll make fun of me,” Onuaku said. “My teammates already laughed at me. I don’t really care.” [ESPN]

And the most important part?

It works.

As a freshman last season, Onuaku was a horrible free throw shooter.

The big man shot 47 percent from the line. So when practice started this year, Pitino called the sophomore to his office. Pitino had cut a video for Onuaku of Hall of Famer and legendary underhanded free throw shooter Rick Barry.

Pitino suggested Onuaku give it a try, and to Onuaku’s credit, he didn’t laugh. Instead he studied the film and mimicked the style. The first time Onuaku stepped to the line in practice, squatting down for the toss, his teammates cracked up.

They don’t laugh anymore. Onuaku hopes the hecklers will be stunned into the same silence. Because here’s the kicker — the ball is going in the basket with a lot more frequency.

At that practice I saw, Onuaku set a personal record, hitting 19 of 19 free throws. At a recent exhibition game against Kentucky Wesleyan, he went 3-for-4 from the line.

He’s like those Dr. Pepper Halftime Challenge guys – look like an emasculated idiot throwing the ball underhanded, have the last laugh when you end up walking away with the big ass check. Or in this case, a spot on an NBA mock draft.

Make teams think twice about a classic Hack-A-Chinanu strategy.