When Terrapin men’s basketball fans think of the team’s top shooters, Ekene Ibekwe is not near the top of their list.
They may point to outside threats such as Chris McCray or Mike Jones, but the 6-foot-9 junior from Carson, Calif., wouldn’t be the best example of a prototypical jump shooter.
But after a summer of refining his unorthodox shooting form, Ibekwe has given the Terps an offensive lift not only in the paint. Ibekwe’s midrange game has improved tremendously since last season, largely to a change in his jumpshot.
In his first two years with the program, Ibekwe would often begin his shot from across his body, cocking the ball over his left shoulder before extending into his shooting motion.
The strange form led to erratic shooting, as Ibekwe averaged 8.4 points per game while connecting on just 55 percent of his free throws in his sophomore year.
Ibekwe said he learned the style when he began playing basketball, and despite the assistance of coaches in his youth, he couldn’t change his form.
“Time and time again, when people before tried to change it, I didn’t really like it,” Ibekwe said. “It wasn’t really comfortable. But I knew in order to improve my stats, as well as help the team out, I had to change it.”
With the help of shooting coach Andy Enfield, Ibekwe finally broke in a new form. Enfield, who holds the NCAA all-time free throw percentage record at 93.3 percent for his career, set the mark while playing at Johns Hopkins from 1987 to 1991.
“When you try out the new form, it feels kind of funny,” Ibekwe said. “The more and more you do it, you aren’t going to feel that funniness no more. Now it feels funny going back to my old form, but that’s how I know I’ve changed.”
Ibekwe and Enfield took hundreds of jump shots a week in the summer and Enfield shifted Ibekwe’s motion to begin from over his head instead of off his shoulder.
“When we came back to school and started playing pickup games, I could really tell he was working on his game,” senior guard McCray said. “He’s shooting the ball with a lot more confidence.”
Through five games, Ibekwe is shooting 81 percent (17 of 21) from the line – a 26 percent age point improvement from last season. He has hit 58 percent of his shots from the field after shooting 41 percent last season.
In the Terps’ 75-62 win in their finale at the Maui Invitational, Ibekwe posted a team-high 16 points, including a perfect 6-of-6 from the free-throw line.
Sunday, Ibekwe was instrumental in the Terps pulling away from Nicholls State. He scored nine points in the Terps’ 14-0 run to open the second half. He finished with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting.
“I think he’s really coming along,” coach Gary Williams said. “He’s really worked hard on his shot, to get it to be a better shot, which it is.”
Contact reporter Scott Clipp at clippdbk@gmail.com.
