For Four McGlynn, the Towson junior who entered this week ranked second in Division I in free-throw percentage, the only superstition he practices is that he has no superstitions.
No whispered wordsat the foul line like the Utah Jazz's Karl Malone did. No circling the ball around the waist before shooting like the Washington Wizards' Gilbert Arenas did. No rubbing of the cheek as longtime NBA guard Jeff Hornacek did.
Just a few dribbles and shoot. That's all McGlynn, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound shooting guard, has done to convert 93.6 percent (73 of 78) of his foul shots through 21 games.
"I've just always felt that being good at free-throw shooting is something that my dad has worked with me on," McGlynn said. "When you get to the line, they're free points. So you might as well take advantage of them. It's kind of hard to say. It's just been something I've always been good at. It just comes naturally."
Scoring points is natural for McGlynn. He finished his career at Dallastown (Pa.) High in 2011 as the school's all-time leading scorer with 1,854 points.
In his freshman year at the University of Vermont, he guided the 2011-12 Catamounts to a NCAA tournament appearance. With an average of 12.0 points per game, he was the only player in the country to lead his team in scoring without starting a game.
Now in his second season playing for the Tigers (9-12, 2-6 Colonial Athletic Association), McGlynn ranks second on the team in scoring, averaging 11.2 points.
Recently, however, McGlynn has hit a cold streak. After scoring 14.8 points in 13 non-conference games, he is averaging 5.5 points in eight CAA contests heading into Thursday night's home game against Charleston (6-15, 1-7).
McGlynn is shooting just 23.7 percent from both the floor and from 3-point range and 77.8 percent (7 of 9) from the free-throw line in conference play. But while his shooting touch has wavered, his confidence has not.
"My confidence never really fades away," he said. "I'll always have that. I just haven't been scoring at the rate that I was, and that's just something I need to get back to. But that doesn't really have anything to do with my confidence."
McGlynn has had a larger role on this year's Tigers. Last year's squad leaned heavily on a senior class led by CAA Player of the Year Jerrelle Benimon, forward Marcus Damas, point guard Mike Burwell and sixth man Rafriel Guthrie, and the Tigers won 25 games, the most successful season in program history.
McGlynn — who was in his first year playing for Towson after sitting out in 2012-13 as a transfer — ranked fifth on that team in scoring (9.2), starting 20 of the Tigers' 36 games.
"Four definitely came in and saw the flow of the team and where it was going, and he just accepted his role as a shooter," said junior forward Timajh Parker-Rivera. "This year, he's starting to really show his leadership. He's stepping up as a leader on and off the court, and he's doing great things for us."
Coach Pat Skerry said McGlynn could have demanded the ball more last year, considering his accuracy from 3-point range (he led the team with a 40.8 percentage from behind the arc), but that's not part of his DNA.
"I think he didn't get enough credit," Skerry said. "He's a good teammate, and he really helped those guys on a couple fronts. One is, that wasn't as great of a passing group or a screening group. So we didn't always get him enough shots. But what he allowed us to do — and this didn't show up in the stat sheet — is that with his ability to shoot the ball, it's almost like they would put a guy on him defensively and never help and it opened up so many driving lanes because of his ability to stretch the defense."
McGlynn, who turned 22 last month, is now Towson's third-oldest player. Aside from getting more shots within the offense, he has nearly doubled his rebounding average to 2.5 per game, and he is on pace to break the school record of a 91.3 free-throw percentage that he set last year.
But the Tigers need McGlynn's shooting touch from the floor to return. He is averaging five fewer minutes in CAA games, and Skerry said McGlynn sat out the last 10 minutes of the team's 53-51 win at Elon last Thursday and wasn't on the floor during a failed comeback in a 69-65 loss at UNC Wilmington on Saturday.
"If he can get back to doing what we believe he can do, then I think we have a chance to be very good," Skerry said. "But it's that time of year where as a coach, you want to get a measure of consistency. You want to know what you're getting every night. He's capable of scoring the ball, and we hope that's going to happen."
McGlynn wants just as badly to contribute to Towson's march to the CAA tournament, which will again be held in Baltimore in early March.
"I want to play my best game in every game, which isn't always possible," McGlynn said. "But looking forward, I'm trying to turn it on at the right time so that hopefully, we can win a couple games and do some things in the tournament in March."