between Idaho State and Utah State. Not even conference rivals, there was no reason to expect anything remotely newsworthy to come out of this game, lest someone score 127 points and slam down his final two doing six back-flips to the rim.

And true to script, Utah State was pummeling the lesser Idaho State in front of its home fans when Kamil Gawrzydek came to the free-throw line, his team down by 20 points, when this happened:

What the what? The ball bounces wildly off the back iron, taps the front of the rim and comes back, content to just sit idly and wait for the inevitable reaction from the 8,145 fans in attendance, all equally stunned by the apparent defiance of physics happening in front of them. Of course, as in all things eventual, the ball falls through for the point, a single point in a game that’ll be otherwise lost to the dusty bins of basketball scorecards. (Afterward, the Associated Press recap only ran 138 words on most wires, with nary a mention of what you just witnessed.)

But beyond the box score, we have the video evidence that for one brief moment, the game of basketball — and the sphere upon which all hoop dreams are cast and prayed upon — stood staggeringly still.

Why? Only science knows for sure, so let’s look at the basics of free-throw shooting. The hoop itself is 18 inches wide, and a regulation-size men’s basketball is just under 10 inches across, leaving more than four inches of buffer on each side of the ball if you dropped it straight down, or scientifically speaking, at a 90-degree angle.

However, as any basketball watcher knows, you don’t throw a free throw straight up as high as you can toward the rafters and hope it drops straight down through. You shoot free throws with the ball approaching the rim at an angle. Now, much of it depends on your height and free-throw-shooting technique, but even a generous parabolic angle of 55 degrees translates to about a circular clearance space of 2.5 inches — about as much as your pinkie finger.

But Gawrzydek’s shot didn’t even go that typical route. He clanged it off the back iron, where it shot up about three to four feet before bouncing on the front of the rim and coming to rest — where physical forces on all sides of the ball came into equilibrium for the most precise of moments.

We won’t begrudge you, the incredibly smart readers of Wired.com, if you’d care to posit your own (preferably) scientifically based reasoning for what we’ve witnessed, so have at it in the comments below.

The Mystery of the Amazing Free-Standing Free Throw deserves nothing less.

Image: Flickr/laffy4k, CC

See Also:

• Longest Basketball Shot: What Are the Chances?
• Basketball Prodigy Brings Hoop Dreams to India
• Oregon Basketball Court Brings Outdoor Wonders to the Hardwood …
• Basketball shot – real or fake?

Authors: Erik Malinowski

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