Hlas: Adam Woodbury has always played the percentages

IOWA CITY — Tuesday night, NBA All-Star center Andre Drummond threw in a 73-foot shot for the Detroit Pistons to beat the third-quarter buzzer against the Toronto Raptors.

That's about the only way you'll see Iowa center Adam Woodbury shoot a 3-pointer. He's never tried one for the Hawkeyes in 128 games. He says he never took one for Sioux City East High.

'A couple in AAU games,' he said.

But here's the thing: The 7-foot-1 senior actually can shoot. Unlike Drummond, an otherwise-great player who has made just 35 percent of his 412 free throw tries this season, Woodbury is 76.6 percent (49-of-64) from the foul line, a vast improvement from his 57.6 percent of a season ago.

And, Woodbury can make 3-pointers. He and teammate Jarrod Uthoff are, said teammate Peter Jok, 'the reigning champions' of a game the Hawkeyes play a lot in the off-season and sometimes before in-season practices.

In the game, two players must make shots from each of five spots behind the 3-point circle while their partners rebound for them. Once a player makes his fifth basket, he and his partner switch places. When the second player sinks his fifth basket, it's game over.

'The whole fall, we were undefeated,' Uthoff said, 'for four or five months. Sometimes it's over in 10 shots.'

'I haven't been playing,' sharpshooter Jok claimed, 'but they've beaten everybody else.'

'They don't like losing to me, that's for sure,' Woodbury said. 'I never take one in a game, but I'm definitely capable of making some every now and then.'

Purdue 7-foot senior A.J. Hammons has fired eight 3-pointers this season and made four.

Indiana 6-10 freshman Thomas Bryant, who will square off with Woodbury Thursday night in the Big Ten's game of the season (so far) between the 10-1 Hawkeyes and 9-2 Hoosiers, has made two 3-pointers and made seven, though just one came since league play began.

Woodbury? Never.

'We've got plenty of other guys shooting and making 3s,' he said, 'so I'm not really worried about that part of my game.

'I'm capable of making them. I've just never been asked to do so.'

It isn't as if Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery has put Woodbury under a 3-point gag order.

'He's got a good shot,' McCaffery said. 'If he's standing still and we throw it to him, I have no problem with him taking one from out there. But he's much more comfortable from 15 or 16 feet, or from 12 feet on the baseline. He knows that's where he's effective and he kind of sticks to those areas.'

Before practices, Woodbury takes those midrange jumpers. Over and over and over. 'I've shot thousands and thousands,' he said. 'Me and Jarrod every day in the summer, a couple hundred easily.'

You might have thought there would be one time in 128 games where Woodbury would have found himself with the ball behind the arc and let a shot fly.

Uthoff has taken 289 3-pointers in three seasons. Red-shirt freshman Nicholas Baer has put up 50 of them. Even twin walk-ons Michael and Steven Soukup have combined to shoot five 3s in garbage time.

Woodbury? Never. Never?

'I probably would have thought he might in the beginning of the year,' Uthoff said. 'I don't think he will now.'

'That really never was who I was,' Woodbury said. 'I've never tried to be anybody who I wasn't.'

And that's what this story was really all about.