Malign Arinze Onuaku for his poor free-throw shooting all you like. (Seriously, please do). But Arinze is scoring a-plenty in other ways. So much so that he crossed the 1,000-point threshold last week against St. Francis.
Arinze Onuaku is as consistent as a clock, as methodical as a metronome, as flashy as a hard hat.
Onuaku, Syracuse University’s senior center, reached the 1,000-point mark in the Orange’s game against No. 10 Florida last Thursday. He became just the 52nd player in Syracuse history to score 1,000 points.
AO isn't flashy and he certainly doesn't smile very often. Possibly ever. But he does the work as SU's best big man in a long time. Not too shabby for a guy who missed an entire season with a knee injury (required for all SU basketball stars).
In the past 20 years, 24 players have reached the 1,000-point mark at Syracuse. Of those two dozen, only three were true centers — Otis Hill (1,416 points) and Etan Thomas (1,340).
"Over the years, the guards do most of the scoring," said Onuaku. "You have to have the mentality that if you get the ball in scoring position, you have to take advantage of that and you’re going to score."
AO is Syracuse’s career leader in field-goal percentage (64.3%). Of course, he's also the leader in worst free-throw percentage of all time as well (38.7% heading into season). SU fans have come to terms with AO's inability to score when no one is guarding him because he's become so adept at scoring when someone is.
| Mike Waters on SU center Arinze Onuaku breaking the 1,000 point barrier. |