 |
| KU's Jamari Traylor throws down a dunk off a miss against Michigan State Tuesday. (www.ljworld.com) |
Tuesday must have been National Put-back Dunk Day in college basketball, because in games across the country, players were turning their teammates misfortune into huge gains while making fans frantically hit the rewind button on their DVR to get another look.
The put-back dunk is one of the most exciting plays in basketball, mainly because for it to take place, there must be a miss first. This gets the crowd down, wondering what player X was thinking and why he didn't swing the ball around to the corner, instead of wasting a possession. Then comes the star of the play, a hero to the possession, flying through the air and changing the momentum and excitement level as he finished off the dunk.
OK, so that was a little dramatic. But the play takes awareness and persistence to attack the basket instead of running back on defense, which coaches love, plus the athletic talent to bounce off the floor and jump higher than everyone else before throwing down the dunk with authority. What about that is not fun to watch?
Here are three guys who executed the put-back dunk best on Tuesday.
We start with Kentucky freshman Alex Poythress, who took advantage of no one blocking out for Duke and sprinted to the paint to throw down a two-handed dunk.
Next we have Kansas' red-shirt freshman Jamari Traylor, who only needed one hand to finish a miss. Traylor was several feet behind initial shooter Elijah Johnson the entire play, but kept running down the lane and made the effort pay off.
We're ending with the most impressive dunk of the night. Detroit's Doug Anderson finished with only eight points, but these two were most impressive of the game. No one was going to stop that dunk from going in.
Follow @BeatsDimesDrive on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment