C. the dunk, B. the dunk
Cardell Butler led Utah State in slam dunks this season.
But he doesn’t quite lead the nation.
Butler was eliminated in the first round of the College Slam Dunk Championship, held in San Antonio where the Final Four will be played.
In a contest shown nationally on ESPN, Butler took it to the wire on both his attempts. Given 30 seconds to dunk, he missed his first attempts before jamming home passes off the glass to himself with time running out.
On a scale of 60, Butler rated a 44.1 for his first dunk off the backboard, then added a 43 with his second slam. His score with the two dunks averaged together left him in sixth place, two spots out of advancing to the semifinals.
Butler’s dunking ability comes as no surprise to Utah State fans, who saw the shooting guard throw down 22 jams this year in a variety of circumstances – alley-oop, break away, monster follow-through dunks off of teammate’s missed shots.
Butler was a first-team all-Big West player who averaged 14 points per game to help the Aggies to a tie for first in conference play with the Pacific Tigers and Utah State’s first top 25 ranking in any poll since 1978.
Ironically, Pacific made quite a showing in the dunk contest. For all Butler’s crowd-pleasing ability, the senior had to watch as the Tigers’ Myree Bowden made it to the final, only to lose on the last dunk of the night.
Andre Emmett of Texas Tech took home the title, leaping over six children huddled in a group on his final dunk to beat out Bowden by two-tenths of a point. Emmett scored a near-perfect 59.4 on the jam.
Bowden made the individual contest a team show by taking a Statue of Liberty handoff from teammate Tyler Newton in the semifinals. Then Bowden lept over Miah Davis, another teammate, in the finals.
Part of the judging criteria was creativity. Emmett earned the only perfect score of the night in the semifinals by tossing a bounce pass to himself off the back wall.
Other contestants were Julius Page of Pittsburgh (named after Julius Irving), Bobby Carter of Western Illinois, Sylvester Willis of Southern Illinois, Winston Davis of Lafayette.
Tony Allen of Oklahoma State was invited but did not compete because his team is playing in the Final Four.
Contestants were judged for difficulty and creativity. With this mandate, dunkers tried everything – off the shot clock, wall, backboard, tearing their shirts off – as well as resorting to the classics – 360-degree dunks, windmill jams and from-the-foul-line leaps.
Some of the contestants post-dunk showboating reflected NFL-style celebrations, without the fines and 15-yard penalties. One contestant pulled out a Sharpie to sign the ball a la Terrell Owens, and another pulled out a cell phone. A shirtless Bowden took a black cowboy hat from Newton after the semifinals to dance under the hoop.
The event also featured a three-point shooting contest.
-royburton@cc.usu.edu