John Shurna, Northwestern's All-Time Scoring Leader: A Tribute to John Shurna's Jumper

John Shurna is Northwestern's new all-time scoring leader, passing Billy McKinney. We'll be examining various aspects of how cool and weird it is that the shy guy with the busted jumper is the most prolific scorer in the history of Northwestern basketball.

Today, a look at his jumper.

It's incredible obviously for anybody to set a school record for scoring. Hundreds of people have played basketball at Northwestern, some of them very talented, and as of now, John Shurna has established that he is the best in terms of putting the basketball into the hoop over the course of four seasons.

But what's really incredible is that he's done it with... well... this weird thing of a jump shot. It's not like anybody else's I've ever seen. It's extremely quick, extremely low, and looks like something you'd expect to fail miserably every time. It is not textbook in any way. Yet, it's deadly accurate. Whether pulling up or catching and shooting, Shurna's jumper has been deadly his whole career, with his three-point percentage hovering in the 40's.

Inspired by a question RossWB asked Loretta8 in an Iowa-Northwestern preview, I asked bloggers from Northwestern and around the Big Ten to describe John Shurna's jumper one to two sentences. Not as many of them got back as I might have hoped, but the ones that did are gold.

This isn't a dig at John Shurna for shooting funny. It's a testament to the fact that something which probably convinced many people watching him play that he couldn't be a good player is actually an incredible offensive weapon. Here's to Shurna for having heard people make fun of his jumper, but refusing to change. John Shurna's shot is hideous, but it's earned our love and everybody else's hate. Thanks, John, and again, congratulations.

There once was a player named John
Whose shot almost looked like a con
His release point so low
He shot it below his nose
I know I won't miss him when he's gone - Pete Rossman, The Only Colors

If there was a Hollywood knockoff run entirely by albatrosses they would make a movie starring albatross Jean-Claude Van Damme in which a nefarious Eastern European terrorist played by a flock of ravens was set to blow up a basketball arena unless albatross JCVD managed to sink a three-pointer. Albatross JCVD would have a wing painfully broken by a terrorist flunky--probably a tern or something--during the dramatic final fight, forcing his shot to be dramatically lofted in a sort of broken lopsided hopeless albatross shove. John Shurna would be called in as a technical consultant. - Brian Cook, MGoBlog

John Shurna's jumper is like a man trying to throw a ravenous beaver off of his head. - BoilerTMill, Hammer and Rails

John Shurna's jumper is like those clear facemasks that players wear after a broken nose; it isn't pretty, but it works. babaoreally, BT Powerhouse

John Shurna's jumper is like a baby bird making its first attempt to fly after spending the entire night downing Jagerbombs. - RossWB, Black Heart Gold Pants

Its wrong, it is just so fundamentally wrong. Every time he shoots the ball I think "just stick your hand out! It so easily blockable!"
It is like a throwback shot to the 1940s - joe k, Hail to the Orange

I didn't even know Shurna's played basketball. First helping you scale the Himalayas, now this. What a world! - Luke Zimmermann, Eleven Warriors

John Shurna's jumper is like an alien bursting forth from a prone man's chest cavity and then scurrying towards the basket. - Bring Your Champions, They're Our Meat

John Shurna's jumper is like an instructional jump shot video filmed on Opposite Day. The low release, the general lack of jumping, hell- his elbows hardly even bend. I don't understand how it works. - Fire Bill Carmody

John Shurna's jumper is like making history. - Welsh-Ryan Ramblings

John Shurna's jumper looks like it has been refined by years of indoor one on one games with Will Ferrell on set of Elf. - Lake the Posts

John Shurna's shot is like an order of fries animal style from In-N-Out. You look at it, and it's so ugly and gross-looking that you think it can't possibly be good, but the end result is, in fact, mighty tasty. - Herman

John Shurna's jumper is what a low-level Olympic shot-putter would look like if he was trying to compete after experimenting with PCP for the first time. - Me.

late entries:

John Shurna's jumper is like a GIRLLLL's. - Tim Aydin, Black Shoe Diaries

Northwestern should recruit more kids who don't bend their elbow when shooting the ball. - The Daily Gopher