Image via Complex Original
Although this year's NBA season has been tarnished by thwarted blockbuster trades, a frustrating hold out, and shocking retirements, the college basketball season has been just as exciting as it always is. Hundreds of crossovers, clutch shots and dunks have gone off without a hitch. The best part? They're doing it to win, not for a bigger contract (yet).
And although many of the year's most electric plays have come from the most expected players -- ahem, Anthony Davis, Jeremy Lamb, and Austin Rivers -- dozens of rim-rocking slams were thrown down at some highly unexpected schools. One even called upon his inner Go Go Gadget. Former UCLA Bruin forward and current ESPN college basketball analyst Sean Farnham helped Complex rank the Top 15 Dunks of the 2011-2012 College Basketball Season. Click through to see what player qualified two jams from the same game.
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15. Fab Melo
Opponent: Villanova
Date: 1/11/2012
"I will go with a dunk that I'm not a fan of, because I think it's still fun to talk about. It's tough to say that a 360 isn't an outstanding dunk, but when it's a 360 by a seven-footer with a 13-point lead in a breakaway cherry-picking situation, it takes away some of the flare from the dunk. But Fab Melo certainly has made a great reputation this year as one of the best finishers around the rim. He's a big reason for Syracuse's success."
14. Quincy Acy
Opponent: San Diego State
Date: 11/15/2011
"If you're talking about dunks in college basketball, it's really hard not to have Quincy Acy on the list at some point in time. Fifty percent of his made field goals in his career are dunks. So, him dunking the basketball is nothing new but his ability to ignite the crowd is great. One of his best attributes is to be able to finish in very tight spaces. On this particular play when he caught the ball on the right block and spun baseline and lifted through on the other side, it showed a combination of a big man who can use great footwork, speed and agility."
13. Dez Wells
Opponent: Morgan State
Date: 11/11/2011
"His leg kick in the air, and the flare that Dez brought to it adds even that much more. He came in on the right-hand side, caught it with his left, and flushed it through. He had the elevation, he had the power, and he had the showmanship with the leg kick. Great dunk."
12. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
Opponent: Portland
Date: 11/26/2011
"It's no surprise that a rookie Kentucky player is on this list. The whole team is basically freshman. What I loved about this particular basket was the steal and his ability to finish. See the rim, get to the rim, and throw it down with massive power. And then the celebration afterwards."
11. Jeremy Lamb
Opponent: Columbia
Date: 11/11/2011
"Sometimes you see guards attack from the wing, and when they see somebody step in front of them, they just think they have to finish, it doesn't matter how. When he drove baseline against Columbia, his idea of finishing was getting to the rim no matter what. His quickness and his ability to explode and get to that point was very impressive. Everybody was talking about Lamb before the season, things have quieted down now, but there was nothing quiet about this dunk."
10. Sam Thompson
Opponent: Indiana
Date: 12/31/2012
"Sam Thompson has separated himself this year as a freshman as probably the best and most explosive freshman leaper in the country. The one against Indiana on the out of bounds, underneath situation. What made that so impressive to me was that he had to make the adjustment in the air to reach back with his right hand, and bring it all the way back through to the side of where the defense was. And in those situations, when everybody is clogged in the middle of the lane, it is very difficult to find a lane, let alone elevate to the height in which he did to finish it."
9. Markel Brown
Opponent: Missouri
Date: 1/25/2012
"I was there for [this] game and sometimes when you look at a dunk, you have to look at more than just what he was able to accomplish with the dunk. Opening possession, he comes down the middle of the lane taking on the No. 2 team in the country at the time. And he’s been struggling, he wants to ignite his team and crowd, wants to let Missouri know that he’s there to play, and that’s exactly what Markel Brown did with that dunk over Kim English. It wasn’t just the dunk that was impressive.
"He took off and Kim English was standing right above that little halo line. He went right over the top and punched it through, but it was the flare in which he did it, the power in which he did it, and the showmanship afterwards that set the tone for that entire evening."
8. Eric Griffin
Opponent: North Carolina A&T
Date: 11/17/2011
"I love this dunk. You see a guy at 6-foot-8 and you think to yourself, “How can a guy at that height really make a name for himself in the best dunks in college basketball?” One of them is looking at the taking-off point. He took off a step inside the free throw line, and then finished with authority over the top of somebody. He had a little bit of everything. He had the distance, he had the ability to go over, and had the power to finish. The combination of those three make it a Top 10 dunk without question.
"He's the type of kid that easily takes off from the free throw line and finishes in a dunk contest. Because it's an in-game situation and he took off from just inside that line, that makes it stand out."
7. Kelsey Barlow
Opponent: Ohio State
Date: 2/7/2012
"I think this dunk gets notoriety, not because of the moment like with Markel Brown, but who he dunked over. Barlow went up over Sullinger, a guy that's a sure-fire first team All-American. And it's not that he just dunked on Sullinger and put him on the cover of a media guide or a poster, it's the reaction of Jared Sullinger as he starts to fall away. His hands literally come up over his face as if he's a NASCAR driver and has lost control of his vehicle and is about to crash. It was that type of reaction like, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe that just happened.'"
6. D.J. Stephens
Opponent: Xavier
Date: 2/4/2012
"What separates this dunk is that he jumps and the ball kind of goes away from him. He ends up catching it with his right hand below the rim, already at the pinnacle of his jump, but he's able to lift it back through and down as he's coming away from the rim. The adjustment was in transition, too. A lot of times, a guy will get caught watching his teammate making the basket. His only anticipation was getting on the Top 10 list in Complex Magazine. It's hard to make those adjustments in the air, and he made it look easy."
"A lot of times as fans, you watch a game and say, “Wow that was spectacular, that guy can really jump!” But if you really observe the adjustments and the visual aspect of it, the hand-eye coordination to be able to get the quick-twitch muscles to grab the ball, react, and throw it through in that manner."
5. Savalace Townsend
Opponent: Grambling
Date: 1/28/2012
"The pride of Arkansas Pine-Bluff. If you watch the dunk you immediately think of the Blake Griffins of the world. The guys that are able to go up and dramatically throw it down. One hand maybe goes on the shoulder to help elevate and push, but unlike Blake Griffin's dunks, this one takes me back a little more to Vince Carter in the Olympic games. He goes up over the top, but still got to the rim. It's not just the jump over that we saw with Barlow or we saw with Brown, it's the jump-over with distance, reach, and the finish.
"It was like he went Go-Go Gadget on him. Go-Go Gadget arms reaching out over him to put it in. Especially considering he's 6-foot-3. If this were Eric Griffin at 6-foot-8, you'd say, 'Okay, well he's 6-foot-8. But Townsend is 6-foot-3 and can still finish like that.'"
4. Jared Cunningham
Opponent: Howard
Date: 12/15/2011
"The product out of Oregon State has always been known as a leaper, but this one reminds me of my former teammate Jeron Rush in the 2000 NCAA tournament when he caught a half-court alley-oop from Earl Watson at Maryland in the second round. It was an absolutely sensational dunk. Like Jeron Rush, Cunningham did it seamlessly. When you jump in the air, the original thought process is 'I'm going to get this and throw it down.' Then all of a sudden, you're twisting, making adjustments. The elevation, how clean he got it through, and the flare in which he did it with the bent legs and the arms all combined for one of the most spectacular dunks we've seen this year."
"It was effortless, and that's the beauty of this dunk: The lack of looking like he's trying. It's more the fluidity of it. Basketball at it's purest form sometimes does look like ballet, and that one looked like a dancer in the air."
3. Terrence Ross
Opponent: Marquette
Date: 12/6/2011
"You think about 360 alley-oop dunks, and they're pretty rare to find. It beckons back to J.R. Smith from Chauncey Billups vs. Minnesota back in March of 2010. You add the fact for Terrence Ross that it was at Madison Square Garden, The Mecca, early season, and for a national audience. The best part of the dunk isn't even the 360, it's how he got himself open. The change of pace and the hard cut froze his defensive player away from the ball, which allowed him to get the separation and creativity going through his mind to get that 360 dunk."
2. Darrion Pellum
Opponent: Maryland Eastern Shore
Date: 2/15/2012
"Here is a dunk for a kid from Hampton who most people around the country don't know about and haven't seen play. If those people watch this one play, they'll probably want to watch every single game he plays in just to see if he could do it again. He channeled his inner T-Mac from the All-Star game in 2002. He shook the defense in transition, tossed the ball off the backboard to himself, the defender turned his head and had no awareness of what's going on, and rose up over the top to finish.
"It was really hard for me to put it at No. 2, because he probably would have won this year's NBA dunk contest with that one. That's not saying much about the dunk contest for this year, but with his ability in this in-game situation to be able to do that, I'd probably put it ahead of T-Mac's. That was an awesome dunk."
1. Markel Brown
Opponent: Missouri
Date: 1/25/2012
"Markel Brown makes his second appearance on the Top 10. It might be because I’m more partial to it because I was right there for it. I saw the way it developed and how it was set up from a called play out of a timeout. Brown’s elevation, the power in which he was able to do it, being met in the air by the defensive player was amazing. He had the flare, he had the finish, and he sold it maybe a little too much, because he got a technical. But if you are ever going to get ejected out of a basketball game, that’s the one dunk you want to get ejected off of. It was just sensational when you consider where his head was at, where he caught the ball, and how he was able to rip it right back through.
"There have a been a lot of one-handed alley-oops this year, but what separated Browns’ was that he did it over the top of somebody in a big moment on a big stage when his team needed a big basket. Because of the combination of those three things, it takes the top spot over Pellum. Even with his ejection, it helped spurn his team to victory. It was kind of a buzz kill when he got ejected, because everybody was going crazy, then you saw boom, technical. Everybody knew he had already gotten one earlier in the game, and even from a broadcaster's perspective, it was disappointing seeing a technical called in that moment, because I wanted to celebrate the dunk with the young man. I wanted to have fun, I wanted to have our producer rack it up four or five times from different angles, because it was that spectacular. Instead, we had to go from the dunk to “Oh no, he just got his second technical and is gone for the game.
"That became more of the story than the dunk. It was a shame, because if that didn’t happen, I think I’d probably still be talking about it."
