Over the years,we've seen some amazing dunks by Duke players. The one Phil Henderson put in Alonzo Mourning's face comes to mind quickly - straight up in the air off the couch, straight down to break it, never cared -Â as does Gerald Henderson's angry dunk at Maryland after Nolan Smith got a concussion on a pick. Kenny Dennard's joyous backwards dunk against Villanova was highly memorable, and Grant Hill's spectacular almost-too-far-to-catch alley-oop against Kansas was unforgettable.
But the greatest dunk ever at Duke was Gene Banks' windmill dunk over 7-4 Ralph Sampson. This YouTube video doesn't really do it justice, partly because slow motion takes away the power of it. Banks was screaming down the floor and Sampson, remember, was the finest 7-4 athlete the world has ever seen and he could just shut things down. Taking him on was audacious and the dunk was far more powerful than this video suggests.
We well remember when Elton Brand decided to take on 7-4 Chase Metheny, also of Virginia, but nowhere near as athletic: he couldn't get it past him. It was pretty cool to watch it develop though: you could see him decide to try, take off, and then the two meeting at the summit, with Metheny blocking the dunk.
The reality is that 7-4 is 7-4. Getting a shot off over even a stiff that size is really hard; slamming it in the face of an elite athlete that size is nearly unthinkable.
But Banks did it.