The 20 Most Epic Dunks in March Madness History

Image via Complex Original

North Carolina’s James Michael McAdoo set the tone early in the top-seeded Tar Heels’ matchup with No. 16 Vermont in 2012, dunking right on top of two hapless Catamounts and helping lead UNC to an eventual 77-58 win.

The put-back dunk is always fun to watch, both on TV and in the arena. Everyone can see the dunker flying in well before the guys under the hoop do, building the anticipation in the arena and at home. This often leads to an explosive reaction when someone flushes it down. 

For a few blissful days in 2013, the entire United States got swept up in “Dunk City.” Tiny, 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast captivated the nation with their breakneck pace and amazing array of dunks, shocking No. 2 Georgetown in their opening game of the tournament.

This alley-oop from Brett Comer to Chase Fieler essentially sealed the victory. FGCU would ride that incredible momentum to another shocking win over San Diego State before finally falling to Florida in the Sweet 16.

Stop if you’ve heard this before: A Kentucky freshman makes a ridiculously athletic play in a big game. This time, it was James Young in last year’s national title game against UConn, as the swingman blew past one Husky and then flushed it over two more, earning an and-one opportunity in the process.

While Young’s dunk gave the Wildcats a surge of energy as they tried to come back from a nine-point deficit, UConn was able to hold on and bring another NCAA title back to Storrs, Conn.

The 2008 Kansas Jayhawks featured five future NBA players. Two of them teamed up here for one of the tournament’s most breathtaking dunks ever. Point guard Mario Chalmers spotted power forward Darrell Arthur cutting to the hoop on this well-designed out of bounds play. Arthur absolutely posterized Villanova point guard Scottie Reynolds with a monster two-handed dunk.

Kansas would wind up winning this one in a 72-57 rout, and, 10 days later, would be crowned national champions after beating Memphis in an overtime thriller.

After an NBA career that saw him play for six teams and struggle to stay healthy consistently, it’s easy to forget what a breathtaking athlete Corey Maggette was at Duke in the late ‘90s. This dunk against Temple should serve as a good reminder. The 6'6" forward elevated way over the Owl rebounders and threw down the put-back dunk as the first half of their Sweet 16 matchup wound down.

Despite having four of the top 14 picks in that year’s NBA Draft (Maggette, Trajan Langdon, William Avery, and Elton Brand), the Blue Devils would fall in the finals to Rip Hamilton and the UConn Huskies.

Especially in the NBA, Reggie Miller often finds himself breaking hearts with clutch baskets at the end of a game. In college, however, things were a bit different.

In the second round of the 1987 tournament, Miller and his UCLA Bruins found themselves on the receiving end of a buzzer-beating dunk by Wyoming’s Turk Boyd. The 12th-seeded Cowboys had already upset West Virginia in the first round, and No. 4 seed UCLA became the next victim in Wyoming’s Cinderella run. The magic would end there, however, as they’d fall to UNLV in the Sweet 16.

Not usually thought of as a basketball powerhouse, Ball State enjoyed a Cinderella run through the 1990 NCAA tournament, knocking off No. 5 Oregon State in the first round. They then followed that up with a win over No. 4 Louisville.

In this second round matchup, Ball State’s Chandler Thompson threw down a massive breakaway dunk on Louisville’s LaBradford Smith to help State recapture momentum after a 14-0 Louisville lead midway through the second half. Despite another incredible dunk from Thompson in the Sweet 16 matchup against UNLV, the Cardinals could not get by the top-seeded Rebels in their next game.

If there was a game that cemented Derrick Williams’ status as one of the best players in college basketball, this was it. The forward absolutely destroyed Duke in the Sweet 16, scoring 32 points and grabbing 13 rebounds as the Wildcats ran away with the game in the second half.

Williams’ most emphatic two points of the night came on this monster put-back, in which he used his incredibly long arms to grab a rebound right out of Kyle Singler’s hand and tomahawk it home in one motion.

The 1979 NCAA tournament will forever be remembered as the moment the nation was introduced to the epic rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Well before the Celtics and Lakers would meet in the NBA Finals, Johnson’s Michigan State took on Bird’s Indiana State for the NCAA title. While Bird had an off night, Magic could not be stopped. This emphatic dunk on Bob Heaton (with Bird nearby) sealed the Sycamores’ fate, as Michigan State would hold on for a 75-64 win to take the title.

UConn had fallen behind late in their Final Four matchup against Michigan State. With just over a minute to go, this monster put-back by Stanley Robinson gave the Huskies hope that they’d be able to sneak back into the game and earn a shot to play for the national title.

As it turned out, however, Robinson’s dunk would be the closest that UConn would get the rest of the game, as a three-point play on the other end effectively put the game out of reach. The Spartans went on to the national title game against North Carolina.

There’s a legitimate chance that Clyde Drexler was able to dunk a basketball shortly after birth. As the face of Houston’s famed Phi Slama Jama team, “The Glide” lived up to his nickname here by exhibiting completely effortless grace in the form of this dunk against Louisville.

The degree of difficulty on the move—changing his mind mid-flight and throwing down with two hands rather than one—is utterly mind-boggling. His ability to make it look so easy became a hallmark of his Hall of Fame career, both in college and the NBA.

The 2012 Baylor Bears set a school record with 30 wins on the season, earning themselves a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. Quincy Acy’s performance in their Sweet 16 matchup against Xavier helped lift an occasionally listless Baylor team. With massive sideline alley-oop dunks like this, it’s not hard to see why they were able to reach the Elite Eight before falling to Anthony Davis and the eventual national champion Kentucky Wildcats.

Michigan State and UConn traded punches all night in the 2009 Final Four, and Durrell Summers’ huge dunk helped the Spartans extend their lead to double-digits late in the second half. This jam is particularly impressive not only because of the and-one that Summers was able to earn, but also because of the fact that it came against a guy (Stanley Robinson) who, at 6'9", was a full four inches taller than him.

Regardless of how things panned out, Alfred Aboya will always have this dunk that he threw down on top of future NBA All-Star Joakim Noah early in the second half of the 2006 title game. Aboya’s dunk may have looked pretty, but it did nothing to turn the tide of the game; it simply cut the Bruins’ deficit from 20 points to 18, and indeed UCLA would not get within single digits the rest of the night. 

While Syracuse’s 2003 national title run is most often remembered for Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara, they would not have won the title without the contributions of Hakim Warrick. In addition to his title-sealing block against Kansas, Warrick’s dunk over Texas’ Royal Ivey in the Final Four helped propel the Orangemen to the first national title in the program’s storied history.

While the officials called a charge on Warrick on the play, the basket still counted and guaranteed that Ivey would live on forever in YouTube infamy.

Considering that he was throwing down dunks like this one in college, maybe Timofey Mozgov and Kendrick Perkins should have seen the Blake Griffin posterization train coming.

Griffin and the Sooners were matched up against Michigan in the second round of the 2009 tournament. Poor Zack Novak made the mistake of thinking that he could slide underneath Griffin on a fast break and live to tell the tale. Blake finished the and-one, and soon thereafter Oklahoma polished off the Wolverines to advance to the Sweet 16 on the strength of Griffin’s 33 points and 17 rebounds.

Much of the country was introduced to Dwyane Wade during the 2003 NCAA tournament. The tough-as-nails shooting guard propelled his Marquette squad to the school’s first Final Four since 1977.

His signature moment came in their Elite Eight matchup against Kentucky, as D-Wade threw down a one-handed dunk right in Kentucky forward Marquis Estill’s face to put the Golden Eagles up by 16. Wade’s performance made him the talk of the country the next day, as he finished the night with 29 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists for just the third triple-double in the history of the tournament.

It was a big, big mistake to get in Clyde Drexler’s way during the 1983 season. There have been few—if any—college players with Glide’s leaping ability, and Memphis State’s Andre Turner found this out the hard way during their matchup in the Sweet 16 against Drexler, Akeem Olajuwon, and the Houston Cougars.

Standing at just 5'11", poor Turner never really had a chance to stop the 6'7" Clyde as he stampeded towards the hoop. But hey, you have to give him credit for trying, right?

There have been few college players in the last 25 years who showed as much promise as Grant Hill. Really, you can probably count on one hand the number of players who could have converted this dunk. Not only did Hill have to get way up and reach behind the hoop just to keep the ball from going out of bounds, but he also somehow had the hang time to flush it down even though his momentum was carrying him in the opposite direction. It was plays like this from the freshman Hill that allowed Duke to knock Kansas off the list and win the national championship.

A dunk simply doesn’t get more epic than this. Tie game, time is winding down, and the national championship is on the line. Houston was a huge favorite playing against NC State, a team that barely made it there. Wolfpack guard Dereck Whittenburg throws up a desperation 30 footer that is clearly falling short. Overtime seems inevitable.

But then, out of nowhere, State’s Lorenzo Charles makes the most heads-up play in the history of college basketball, grabbing the ball and throwing it down as the clock hits zero, lifting his team to a national title. Simply put, this play is everything we know and love about March Madness.