UVU basketball: Senior sharpshooter is money from line

Early in December, the Utah Valley men's basketball team found itself down by three points on the road against Northern Arizona with mere seconds remaining on the game clock.

At the line for the Wolverines was senior free-throw deadeye Ryan Toolson.

Seconds earlier, Toolson had seemingly willed a 3-point shot into the goal, only to have a referee rule he was fouled before the shot attempt, and two shots would be all he would get.

After making his first attempt, Toolson, whose collegiate free-throw percentages rival the best in NCAA history, looked toward Utah Valley coach Dick Hunsaker, indicating he would purposely miss the second shot to give his team a chance at a game-tying, two-point field goal.

"He wanted to miss the next one," Hunsaker said, instead of wanting to pad his stats. "I told him to make it — and he did — which ... speaks of his desire, his competitive fight to win."

In his final season at Utah Valley, Ryan Toolson is poised to make his mark on basketball history, even if it won't ever go down in any record books. With Tuesday's game at North Dakota, in which Toolson was a perfect 6-of-6 at the free-throw line, he now stands with a career free-throw percentage of 94.2 percent, making 411-of-436 career attempts.

But, given Utah Valley's NCAA provisional status remaining in place through the end of this season, those stats — which are mere 10ths of a point behind the NCAA free-throw percentage record — will never make their way into the official record books. Former Missouri State player Blake Ahearn, who shot at a 94.6 percent clip for his career, will remain alone atop the record book.

"He's right on the brink," said his dad, Mike Toolson. "Whether that's an NCAA record, or off the record, it will always be a record for him, and nobody can take that away. He knows that's a big part of the game — getting to the line."

Ryan Toolson said he's aware of the close proximity of his percentage and Ahearn's career record. He's calculated it out and said he'd be ahead if Ahearn had missed just one more of his free-throw attempts.

"It's always kind of a competition to me to see who's ahead of me," he said. "Or how many free throws I have to make to get ahead of him."

Even if he doesn't make the record books for the NCAA, he's certainly rewritten them at Utah Valley. He's the school record-holder for points in a career, points in a game, field goals made, nearly every 3-point field goal record, and just about anything that says free throw on it.

According to his mom, Cheri Toolson, Ryan Toolson has been getting to the line since he was just a little tyke growing up in Gilbert, Ariz.