Formerly hapless Owens finds charity stroke

Penn center Geoff Owens elicited cheers from the Palestra crowd with his surprisingly fine free-throw shooting. Ovation after ovation rocked the Palestra on Friday night, as Penn fans applauded in disbelief at what they were witnessing. These standing ovations were not precipitated by thunderous dunks from Ugonna Onyekwe and Koko Archibong, or by a barrage of three-pointers from Matt Langel or even by a heart-stopping Michael Jordan weave through the Harvard defense. No, what the crowd at the Palestra witnessed on Friday night was even more amazing. Geoff Owens, he of the infamous 49 percent career foul-shooting percentage, drained shot after shot from the free-throw stripe. The charity stripe has long been Owens' bugaboo, but that was far from the case on Friday. The Penn center converted on his first eight attempts against Harvard to extend his streak of consecutive free throws made to an astounding 14. The Penn big man missed his final attempt from the foul line on Friday and only shot two free throws on Saturday, making one. But Owens has still made 15 of his last 17 shots from the charity stripe since Penn's win over Yale last week. And, more importantly, a King-Kong-sized monkey may finally be starting to dismount from the Audubon, N.J., native's back. "[Foul shooting] is something I've worked on for a while, but it's just been an Achille's heel for me the past couple years," Owens said. Things had gotten so bad for Owens at the line that Penn coach Fran Dunphy was forced to take his starting center out in the closing minutes of the Drexel game last month. The Dragons treated Owens like Shaquille O'Neal at the end of the game, intentionally fouling the Quakers' center in hopes that he would be his usual ineffective self on the line. And Owens did allow Drexel to creep back into the game in the second half by making just 3-of-9 foul shots. Following that game, Owens re-dedicated himself to becoming competent at the charity stripe, starting with a change in form. Owens, who used to release his free-throw attempts from near the top of his head, moved his hands lower and his release closer to his body to try to maximize consistency. "A lot can go wrong between here and there," Owens said, referring to bringing his hands from a set position to his former over-the-head release point. "Now I'm more tight." In addition to that mechanical alteration, Owens has been, by his own estimation, giving "100 percent instead of 95 percent" in practicing his foul shooting. He now shoots at least 100 free throws a day, many in pressure-packed competitions with teammates or game-like simulations. "Sometimes, if you stay on the line all day, you get used to a certain form," Owens said. "You shoot against someone, or you shoot two sets of two -- it makes it more game-like." The effort Owens invested into his foul shooting did not pay immediate dividends, as he shot just 2-of-5 from the line in his next three games. But since then, Owens has shot a stellar 88 percent from the stripe. And his seat on the bench at the end of each of Penn's last four games is a result of a flurry of Quakers blowouts, not his foul shooting. "I know my team needs me on the floor for defense as well as offense," Owens said. "It hurts my team that I couldn't be in the game. Hopefully, I won't be in that situation again where I have to come out of the game." On Friday against Harvard, Owens took just one shot from the field, but still managed to score 10 points on account of his 8-for-9 performance from the foul line. But Owens wasn't the only Quakers player to hit his foul shots on Friday. Penn hit a very impressive 20-of-22 overall from the line against the Crimson. "[Foul shooting] is very contagious, and now Geoff has started to make them," Dunphy said. "And now, as soon as he did it, everybody else is making them." For the other Quakers, making foul shots only leads to a collective "whoosh" from the Penn fans, but for Owens, conversion at the charity stripe on Friday led to standing ovations. The Penn center, however, was far from being flattered. "It's an embarrassment," Owens said. "I don't need a standing ovation. I want [making foul shots] to be normal from now on." It's unlikely that Penn fans will consider a sweet-shooting Owens at the foul line normal in the near future, but the Quakers center's recent success may just be the first step in Owens' transfer out of the Wilt Chamberlain school of free-throw shooting.