UConn's Alex Oriakhi provides season's strangest free throw miss

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Thu Mar 03 01:45am EST

UConn's Alex Oriakhi provides season's strangest free throw miss

Not much went right for UConn on Wednesday night at West Virginia, as the Huskies suffered their third loss in four games, 65-56.

They trailed by only two at halftime and stayed within range of the Mountaineers until the final minutes. But their "It's just one of those nights" moment came pretty early, when sophomore forward Alex Oriakhi stepped to the free-throw line with a couple of minutes left before the intermission.

Oriakhi has improved this season on his 53.7 percent free-throw shooting from last year, though even now at 60.8 percent, misses are not necessarily rare for him.

But how many charities would Oriakhi have to attempt before getting this to happen again?

Until Wednesday, it seemed unlikely that anyone this season would top the strange free-throw attempt of Idaho State's Kamil Gawrzydek, whose shot hung out for a while on the front of the rim before dropping in during a loss at Utah State in December.

This one might get the nod, though, because the ball's momentum came to a complete halt on a bouncy piece of iron with next to no space there for it to do so. It was accented by the ESPN mic on the backboard picking up West Virginia's John Flowers using some choice language while trying to coax the ball off of the rim.

For the record, the ruling on the play was a miss, with West Virginia getting possession via a jump ball. There are, unfortunately, no bonus points awarded for difficulty that can give Oriakhi's percentage a boost.

(Tip of the hat to @ballinisahabit)

Ryan Greene also covers UNLV and the Mountain West Conference for the Las Vegas Sun. Read his Rebels coverage and follow him on Twitter.

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