Canyon Barry’s bringing back underhand free throws

Florida Gators player Canyon Barry is following in his dad’s footsteps with his underhand free throw prowess.

The Florida guard set a school record last week as he made his 39th consecutive free throw.

The Gators won the NCAA men’s basketball game March 18 and are in the sweet 16. They will be playing Friday night and perhaps Barry will be showing off another underhand free throw.

He has others imitating the throw.

Not everyone was so enthused about Barry’s style, however. Disapproving tweets were flying last week about the basketball player.

If you can get the ball into the basket without breaking any rules, people shouldn’t care how it gets there. Barry should keep doing his thing and work toward ending the stigma on shooting underhand. 2017 is all about acceptance and being open to different kinds of people. Let’s embrace this diversity. I’m going to create a hashtag about this and some #woke stickers for everyone’s MacBook.

But The New York Times reported the underhand throw has a long way to go before it is legitimized in basketball.

And yet, it remains almost impossible to sell the shot as a serious option. Canyon and Rick Barry have reached out to a few N.B.A. players asking if they would like to learn to shoot underhanded and possibly use the technique in games.

So far, they have had no takers.

“I don’t know whether it’s their egos or they’re just not willing to change,” Canyon Barry said. “It’s crazy.”