ATLANTA – Bambale Osby has been the recipient of opposing fan barbs directed at him because of his afro, so when the Georgia Tech students serenaded him with a chant of their own, it was nothing new.
“Supercuts! Supercuts! Supercuts!” the students chanted as Osby lined up to shoot two free throws at the beginning of the first half.
“Like, Supercuts?” Osby said afterward, hardly impressed. “I’ve never heard that one before.”
The students didn’t have an effect on Osby, who was clearly the best player on the floor in the Terrapin men’s basketball team’s 88-86 win at Georgia Tech. Osby scored 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting, and he pulled down 11 rebounds (four offensive), but his most impressive numbers were from the free-throw line, where he made 8 of 9, including two crucial ones with 17 seconds left in the second half.
“Bambale Osby’s been really tough for us, playing big when we need him, and I hate to even talk about it, but he’s quietly become a good free-throw shooter,” coach Gary Williams said. “If this was December, I would have taken him out and put a different guy in there. But that’s where he’s come with the free throws.”
Osby said he gets together before and after each practice with assistant coach Keith Booth to work on his free throws. Osby has to make two in a row, four in a row, six in a row, eight in a row and finally 10 in a row before the session ends.
“The higher the number, the more pressure it is to make them,” Osby said. “It’s just a pressure situation that we’ve been working on. It’s about focusing and concentrating. Once you get to seven free throws, if you miss it, you go back to one. You don’t want to go back to one – the pressure’s on you.”
And the pressure was on Osby in the last minute of Saturday’s game, when the Terps held a three-point lead. Eric Hayes had just missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Osby grabbed the offensive rebound and was fouled.
Osby went through his normal routine – a long pause before shooting – and knocked down both free throws to give the Terps a five-point lead.
“The first three seconds I’m breathing, getting oxygen back, calming myself down,” he said. “Making sure that I got my routine set, make sure I got my feet set, then I just go into the shot.”
The senior came into the game shooting 62.6 percent since the beginning of last season from the charity stripe, but his numbers have dramatically improved lately. In the Terps’ seven ACC games, Osby is shooting 77.5 percent from the line.
And who would have thought he would be the one to make the important free throws, while Hayes and Greivis Vasquez were the ones missing at the end?
“People may say he has a terrible free-throw percentage,” senior forward James Gist said. “When it comes to the clutch, Boom [Osby] is always money. I just call him Money. He’s always good for two. Boom has what people like to call ‘ice in his veins.’ He likes to be the one to win that game.”
When Osby made the first of the final two free throws, he stood at the line with his arm extended in a shooting motion for a few extra seconds, a small jab at everyone in the arena who was hoping for a miss.
It was his exact reaction as to when the students were chanting “Supercuts” at him.
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