First slams are grand for Tigers

Normal human beings can’t do what Leo Lyons did at practice Thursday.

After taking a pass from a coach at the free-throw line, Lyons took one dribble, jumped and performed a two-handed reverse dunk. It was so easy for Lyons that a few minutes later he did it again.

Most college and professional players say they appreciate having the ability to perform such feats. It’s an ability Marshall Brown says he feels lucky to have.

“Having an ability to jump and do the things we do is definitely a gift and a talent,” Brown said. “You definitely don’t take that for granted.”

Brown said he made his first dunk when he was a 5-foot-10 seventh-grader.

He was just clowning around after track practice with his friends in his junior high gymnasium.

There was nothing special about the one-handed dunk, he said, other than the fact it was his first.

“My friends were going crazy. I was going crazy,” Brown said. “I went home telling everybody, and no one believed me. Then I finally started showing them that I could.”

Two years earlier, Brown said he discovered he could jump high enough to touch the rim. Brown said his father cultivated his jumping ability by taping money to the rim and having his son grab it.

Now, in college, Brown said his favorite dunks happen on the road. Unlike dunks at Mizzou Arena, those dunks quiet the crowd. Sometimes after dunking against in a road game, the loudest sound in the arena is the noise coming from the visiting team’s bench, celebrating the most emphatic way to get two points.

“I enjoy dunking on the road,” Brown said. “When you get a dunk, and you quiet the crowd, that’s like they’re cheering for you like Coach (Mike Anderson) always says. When the crowd’s quiet, that’s a great feeling.”

A quieted crowd, however, doesn’t help Lyons. His one-handed, alley-oop dunk against Davidson on Nov. 19 is still one of the most impressive plays a Missouri player has made this season.

Lyons says dunking at home, in front of loud fans, helps him keep his energy up. On the road, Lyons says there is no home crowd to lift him after a dunk.

“Yeah, it is (fun), but not so much now,” Lyons said. “There’s a lot more things you got to do besides dunking. Like, if you do the right things you’re supposed to do on the court, if you dunk, it takes a lot out of you.

“The crowd keeps me up. But if it’s away, there’s a little fatigue. But here the crowd gets pumped, and I get pumped, and it keeps me up.”

When Lyons first dunked in eighth grade, he said it was off a carpeted floor. He said he was so excited about dunking, he “wanted to keep doing it.”

“After the game, I was so excited I just kept dunking over and over,” Lyons said.

As excited as Lyons was after his first, dunks have the opposite effect on the opponent, deflating the opposition.

When Kalen Grimes dunked over Kansas center Sasha Kaun on Feb. 10, he let out a loud, emotional scream. It’s doubtful the next time Grimes makes a hook shot he will have the same reaction.

“It’s a sense of strength,” Grimes said. “It’s power over an opponent.”

While they are worth just two points, dunks get a home crowd excited, more so than after a 12-foot jumper. They can also inspire the team that made the dunk, giving it just a little bit more energy than it thought it had.