I compiled some stats on dunks this season. Let’s look at them.
Most dunks, individual:
5. Chimezie Metu, USC (60). Metu is the only player on this list who takes more than 20% of his team’s shots so he’s more than a one-dimensional dunker. For a guy that gets to the rim on the regular, it’s odd that he’s a 45% shooter on non-dunks. When he doesn’t get right to the rim, he’s often not getting very close at all. Of his 199 non-dunks, 122 have been classified as jumpers by the official scorers.
4. Devantae Cacok, UNC Wilmington (61). Cacok has made 77.3% of his field goal attempts and thus is on his way to establishing a new D-I record, breaking Steve Johnson’s record of 74.8% set in 1981. (Cacok has actually made 78.7% when you include his two games against non D-I teams. The stats presented on this site don’t recognize these games because those games are not real.) Cacok dunked just nine times in limited minutes last season as a freshman. He may well be the favorite to win the dunk title next season.
3. Demetris Morant, Florida Gulf Coast (69). Morant started his college basketball journey at UNLV where he redshirted his first season and then barely played during his second. He struggled his first two seasons at FGCU, but as a senior he is blossoming. He’s second in the land in eFG% because of an intense focus to dunk on people’s heads. As a bonus, the Eagles are having a much better season than the Rebels, who are headed for a last-place finish in the Mountain West after last night’s 23-point loss to Air Force.
2. Edrice Adebayo, Kentucky (75). The player more commonly known as Bam has dunked in 25 of his 28 games this season. His season high was eight in the SEC opener against Mississippi. It was also his best scoring performance of the season – he had a season-high 25 points and took seven more shots than in any other game this season.
1. Tacko Fall, UCF (86). Not surprisingly, the tallest player in the country has the most dunks this season. Fall is well on his way to the national dunk title, even if his team doesn’t play many postseason games. He’s had eight dunks in a game on three occasions this and is such a monster dunker that he ranks fourth in the country in two-point percentage despite making just 55% of his non-dunks. He has failed to dunk in just five games this season. Fall’s dunking kryptonite is ECU center Andre Washington. In two games against ECU, Fall failed to successfully dunk and went a combined one-for-12 from the field.
Most missed dunks, individual:
5. (tie) Justin James, Wyoming; Marvin Jones, Texas Southern; Obij Aget, New Mexico; Buay Tuach, Loyola Marymount (6).
4. Michael Ojo, Florida State (7). For whatever reason, Ojo has lost his dunking touch this season, making just 21 of his 28 attempts. I blame it on too much free throw practice. Ojo was a 40% free throw shooter (41-102) in his first three seasons, but has made 50-of-64 (78%) this season. The odds of Ojo being a better FT shooter than dunker this season were approximately 100000000-to-1.
3. Emile Blackman, Duquesne (8). Blackman had never been an accurate dunker, having made 41 of 48 attempts in his previous two college seasons. but in a sport where roughly 90% of dunk attempts are successful, his 85% success rate was not notable. This season, however, Blackman’s eight misses come on just 15 attempts. Meaning, he’s missed more dunk attempts than he’s made.
2. Josh Jackson, Kansas (9). Blackman is the exception on this list. Normally, to miss a lot of dunks you have to try a lot of dunks. Jackson has been credited with 46 dunk attempts, but has made just 37 suggesting an unhealthy obsession with trying to end up on the highlight reel
1. Chimezie Metu, USC (15). The king of the missed dunk is Metu whose 60 made dunks come on 75 attempts. Metu missed nine dunks as a freshman so it’s not a fluke he’s on this list. Despite this, there is no known video of any of Metu’s 24 career missed dunks, so maybe it’s a false flag.
Most dunks, team:
Florida State (150). The Seminoles have six players with at least 15 dunks each and get another 17 from five other players. That’s not too shocking considering that FSU is the second-tallest team based on minutes played.
Fewest dunks, team:
American (2). The Eagles start a 6-10 guy at center, so dunks should be possible. Well, that guy, Mark Gasperini, is the only AU player to successfully dunk this season. American players have tried to dunk four times – three by Gasperini and one unsuccessful effort by 6-5 wing Delante Jones. American is 7-21 and their offense ranks 325th.
Most dunks allowed, team:
Arizona State (82). Some of this is on the Sun Devils’ dreadful interior defense (their defensive two-point percentage ranks 335th!) which is partly the result of Bobby Hurley generally playing four smalls. But some of it is Arizona State facing prolific dunking teams in the Pac-12 along with a non-conference test against Kentucky, the second most-frequent dunking team in the land. (If Arizona State played American 30 times, they obviously wouldn’t be leading the country in dunks allowed.) ASU plays UCLA and USC this week, and those teams are the fourth and sixth most-frequent dunking teams, so the Sun Devils are likely to expand their lead over second-place Auburn (76).
Fewest dunks allowed, team:
Saint Mary’s (9). The Gaels’ have benefitted from playing a lot of teams that just aren’t capable of dunking much. Throw in some depth on a tall front line and a super slow pace and Saint Mary’s has some things going for it in keeping the opposing dunk total to a minimum. Shout out to Santa Clara starting center Emmanuel Ndumanya who successfully dunked twice on Saint Mary’s in a January loss to the Gaels, which is something no other team has done this season. Ndumanya, who amazingly has not attempted more than five field goal attempts in a game this season, will get another shot at Saint Mary’s in the regular-season finale on Saturday.
Shortest dunker:
Mount Saint Mary’s Junior Robinson, at 5-5, is listed as having dunked once this season, late in a lopsided loss to Lehigh. That’s an achievement worth celebrating. But if there was a Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award for dunking, it would go to Campbell’s Chris Clemons. Listed at 5-9, Clemons has thrown it down 16 times this season, ten more than any other player listed at shorter than six feet.