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Charlie Zegers

Clank!

By , About.com GuideMarch 20, 2009

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It is hard to recall any player at any big-time basketball school that looks as hopeless from the free-throw line as Syracuse forward Arinze Onuaku.

Onuaku shoots freebies like he's playing a carnival game... with a ball that's over-inflated and a shrunken rim. This season, he hit just 30 percent of his shots from the line.

Thirty percent.

For the sake of comparison -- Shaquille O'Neal is perhaps the most notorious bad free-throw shooter in today's NBA. Fantasy basketball players will avoid Shaq like the plague, for fear of what the big fella will do to a team's free throw percentage.

For his career, Shaq has just under 60 percent from the line... .582, to be exact.

Onuaku is approximately twice that bad.

This shortcoming probably won't hurt the Orange in their first round matchup with Stephen F. Austin... as I write, 'Cuse is surging to a big first-half lead. But Syracuse isn't a particularly deep team... and Kristof Ongenaet is reportedly battling a nasty stomach bug. That means Jim Boeheim might not have the opportunity to pull Onuaku in favor of a better shooter late in a game... and that could mean trouble when the Orange face either Arizona State or Temple on Sunday.

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