Hayden Rooke-Ley steps up to the foul line and catches the ball from the referee.

One dribble. A bend of the knees. Another dribble.

“See the swoosh,” Rooke-Ley says to himself as he envisions the ball going into the net.

Then the shot.

He repeats this motion every time he takes a free throw. In his first 67 attempts this year it worked without fail — a Division III record.

Rooke-Ley is in his senior season for Williams College in Massachusetts, averaging just under 20 points a game and shooting 91.7 percent from the free-throw line. He was leading D-III in free-throw shooting percentage until he tried to play through a broken hand that caused him to miss five games. His dedication to repetition and perfecting his mechanics has made him one of the best shooters from the charity stripe in college basketball.

“He’s not just a shooter,” Williams head coach Kevin App said. “He can really attack and get to the rim and get to the free-throw line and he makes our offense really efficient.”

Every day since he learned how to shoot a basketball, he’d try to take at least 100 foul shots.

In high school, Rooke-Ley would bike to the YMCA in his hometown of Eugene, Oregon to shoot before school. If it was too cold, he’d have his parents drive him.

“It was by no means fun to be down there at 5:30 in the morning,” Rooke-Ley said. “But I felt like that’s what was really going to give me an edge in terms of free-throw shooting or just basketball in general,”

After bad games, he would return to the YMCA to shoot and think about his game — a therapeutic method he still uses at Williams.

His mechanics, which his coaches say are nearly perfect, developed from years of basketball camps, coaching and watching YouTube videos of Ray Allen, J.J. Redick, Jimmer Fredette and Salim Stoudamire.

“I always felt the better mechanics you have as a shooter, the less repetitions you’re going to have to have to be a good shooter,” Rooke-Ley said.

Now, he’s lowered his number to 50 foul shots a day, but takes them in between drills to simulate a game-like situation.

Rooke-Ley will often arrange a group of teammates to go to the gym around midnight, especially on the weekends. Last year, he and three other teammates shot around in the dark at 1:30 a.m. on a Sunday, with the court only illuminated by a hallway light.

For almost the first month of games this year, Rooke-Ley didn’t miss a foul shot.

“Shooting a free throw is like walking for him,” guard Daniel Wohl said. “When he lines up to shoot … I don’t even attempt to get the rebound just because I assume every one is going in.”

During the Thanksgiving tournament at Union College, Rooke-Ley hit a foul shot and the entire bench erupted in cheers. Rooke-Ley knew he hadn’t missed all year and assumed he had broken a record.

After the game, teammates were congratulating him for breaking the consecutive free throw record for D-III, until a fan realized someone had looked up the record wrong.

Rooke-Ley had made 60 in a row, but the record was 66.

“You try not to think about it, but of course it makes you think about it more,” Rooke-Ley said. “I knew exactly where I was. I was sure I would miss on the record or right before it.”

He managed to make the next seven in a row, but No. 68 clanked off the right part of the rim. Finally, he was able to stop worrying about the streak.

Said Rooke-Ley: “I knew it was off the second I let it go, so it was almost like my body and my brain were telling me, ‘Get this thing over with.’”

Published on February 4, 2015 at 12:07 am

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus