A short intrasquad scrimmage is billed as the main attraction at tonight’s season-opening Late Night in the Phog at Allen Fieldhouse.
Truth be told, however, most of the oohs and aahs each mid-October are heard from 16,300 fans not during a somewhat anti-climactic 20 minutes of basketball, instead during the pre-workout layup drill.
That drill annually features spectacular dunks from the athletically gifted Jayhawk players.
“People are always eager to see us do it (dunk). We’ve got some stuff I want to see,” KU sophomore forward Julian Wright said of teammates’ acrobatic jams.
“We’ve got guys all summer saving it up for Late Night,” Wright added with a sly grin.
Thanks in large part to ESPN, which runs umpteen dunk highlight reels a night on SportsCenter, the slam has become the focal point of college and NBA basketball.
Fans love dunks.
As Wright indicated, players do, too.
“I enjoy it a lot,” KU sophomore guard Mario Chalmers said of the dunk drill at Late Night. “The fans get into it, wanting to see what kind of dunks we can come up with, who will do what.”
“They want to see how high we can go, what everybody can do,” said freshman guard Brady Morningstar, who thrived on Late Night dunk drills during his grade school and high school years in Lawrence. “I’ve been to quite a few when I was younger. It’s always been a lot of fun.”
Though everybody on KU’s roster can dunk, some players obviously perform the feat better than others.
“I’d say it’s a tossup between Julian, Brandon (Rush), Rodrick (Stewart) and Shady (Darrell Arthur),” Chalmers said, asked to rank the top slam-jammers on the squad.
“I think I’ll give it to Julian,” junior center Sasha Kaun said. “He is so long. Sometimes he jumps, I think he’ll lay it up. He surprises me, keeps stretching and dunks.
“I don’t know how he can do it. He’s so lengthy. He gets some beautiful dunks. He’s pretty good.”
Morningstar is another member of the Wright dunk fan club.
“He is pretty amazing in what he can do in the air,” Morningstar said of the Chicagoan. “It looks so awkward, but always goes in and it’s always exciting to see.”
Junior point guard Russell Robinson chimed in with his ratings: “Julian has been the best so far, but after seeing Darrell, he can dunk, too. And when Brandon gets loose … he’s pretty much good to watch, too.”
Freshman guard Sherron Collins, who had the best dunk of any at the McDonald’s All-America game, flipping the ball off the backboard on a breakaway and putting it home, is awed by Wright.
“I’d say Julian is best on the team. With Julian you don’t know what he will do,” Collins said.
Wright, who is not about to vote for himself as the Jayhawks’ top dunker, said: “Shady is pretty good. Everybody has good dunks. Everybody has days when you have legs under you and you feel it. We can get four or five dunks among us in every game.”
Arthur, a 6-foot-9 freshman from Dallas, appreciates compliments about his dunking.
Because he thrives on the jam.
“It’s what most people live for, to get that dunk,” said Arthur, who said he first dunked in a game in “seventh grade. I got a steal, just went up, tried to dunk it and made it.
“You dunk one, you get that urge to keep trying to go up for another and another. It’s what people like.”
Not all people.
Some purists want to eliminate the dunk in an attempt to re-stress fundamental basketball.
“I don’t think they should outlaw it, because it brings excitement to the fans, to the game,” said Chalmers, whose first dunk was in an AAU tournament in Las Vegas, the summer after his eighth-grade season.
“It wouldn’t wreck the sport, but it wouldn’t make it as exciting,” the 6-3 Morningstar said of denying dunking.
“It wouldn’t be good to take it away. A center, if he can’t put it down on somebody would have to change his style of play. Shaq if he had to lay it up wouldn’t like that,” added Morningstar, who indicated his first dunk in a game was for Free State High against Lawrence High during Morningstar’s senior season.
Kaun, a 6-11, 245-pound junior pivot, can’t imagine not being allowed to dunk.
“I agree with what coach (Bill) Self says about the dunk. People say the dunk is just two points. It is just two points, but the dunk can change the momentum of the game,” Kaun said. “Coach Self says, and I believe him, the game can be going one way, if somebody dunks or dunks on somebody, it just gives so much adrenaline and excitement to the team that dunks. It changes everything.
“You can watch a game, a team dunks quick, right off the bat, it changes the momentum of the game so much.”
Former KU guard Jerod Haase, now an assistant at North Carolina, can’t imagine basketball without the dunk.
“The dunk should not be outlawed,” Haase said. “It brings a level of excitement to the game that would be missing if dunks were outlawed. Having dunks does not mean that team play or fundamentals need to be lacking.”
Rest assured, there will be dunks tonight at Late Night.
“It should be good,” Robinson said. “I hope I can join in with some dunks this year.”
