Manny Atkins’ shot isn’t pretty.
Instead of Atkins’ right arm and wrist following through toward the basket, both stop short as if he's throwing a dart. One of Georgia State’s coaches describes the finish as looking like a “gooseneck.” Another says it’s a perfect knuckleball.
Atkins doesn’t care. It’s working. He has scored at least 20 points in three of the Panthers’ (9-11, 4-3 CAA) past four games as they prepare to host North Carolina Wilmington (7-10, 2-3) on Thursday.
“It works,” he said.
Atkins said he began shooting that way in middle school, when his mom took him to see a shooting coach in Duluth. Atkins used to shoot from his hip. Several times a week, the coach would have him stand under the rim and put up dozens of shots. Atkins didn’t like it. But the coach told him that as long as his wrist was locked in and that he extended his elbow, everything would work out.
“Ever since then, that’s when I first started realizing I could shoot the ball,” he said. “I’ve just stuck with it.”
He starred at Tucker and signed with Virginia Tech, where the coaches briefly tried to tinker with his shot. It didn’t take. He transferred to Georgia State, where coach Ron Hunter considered asking him to improve his form because he said his shot looked like one of R.A. Dickey’s butterflies. It didn’t take.
Eventually, Hunter realized that Atkins was fine, but that didn’t stop assistant Darryl LaBarrie from likening his finish to a “gooseneck.”
Atkins, a redshirt junior, is averaging 13.6 points per game and his 3-point field-goal percentage of 42.2 leads the Colonial Athletic Association.
Even his teammates aren’t talking smack anymore.
“I think a lot of them want to shoot like me now,” he joked.
That’s not something Hunter would advise. But he does appreciate how Atkins’ improved form and confidence has lifted the team, which has won three consecutive games.
Hunter said it’s no coincidence that as Atkins has improved, so has point guard Devonta White and freshman Markus Crider.
With Atkins on one wing and leading-scorer R.J. Hunter on the other, defenses can’t leave them to close down the free-throw lane. White is finding more room to drive and if the defenders do collapse, he knows he has sharpshooters waiting on the wings that he can find. It’s also opening the floor for Crider.
“That’s the trickle-down effect,” Ron Hunter said. “It’s also why your best player has to be a good player and a good person. He has to lead.”
The team does seem to take its cue from Atkins. He struggled at the beginning of the year, and the team struggled, at one point losing seven of eight games in a mid-December to mid-January stretch.
Atkins admits it took him a while to regain his playing form after sitting out last year because of his transfer. He said it also took him a while to get used to his coach’s intense style. Instead of playing, he worried about making mistakes and letting everyone down.
“You can’t play basketball like that,” he said.
It took a loss at Hofstra to teach him that lesson. Some 30-40 members of Atkins’ family who live in the New York area attended that game and watched him score 10 points and miss seven of his 11 shots in a 52-50 loss.
After the game, he said they told him that he didn’t look like he was having fun. He said his friends in Atlanta were telling him the same thing.
“It got me going,” he said. “I knew I wanted to go out playing the way I can play. The game’s way easier than the way I was making it.”
Ron Hunter said he’d been telling him a version of the same thing all season. He needed to stop worrying about what everyone was saying and just play.
“He wanted to please everyone,” Hunter said. “He wasn’t pleasing himself.”
Atkins bounced back to score 20, 21 and 21 points in the next three games. He scored nine in Monday’s win over Towson. But because the Tigers were so focused on stopping Atkins, R.J. Hunter took advantage to score 27 points in the 71-69 victory.
“Once he and I started figuring each other out … my confidence shot up a little,” Atkins said. "It’s sky high now. If I keep playing with this confidence, big things will happen. I have to stay with it. Just keep shooting the ball.”
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