Top 5 Dunks of Capel Era

In just three years, we’ve seen the transition. From a slow, plodding team to an uptempo, high-flying assault, third-year Oklahoma head coach Jeff Capel has already left his mark on the OU basketball program. In 2009, every Sooner has the athleticism to take the ball to the hole.

While it doesn’t hurt to have what most believe the best player in college basketball in your lineup, we’ve been blessed with a slew of highlights in just two and half seasons. And while Blake Griffin should probably have his own entry just for his rim-shaking antics, we thought we’d spread the RDK love.

We don’t have the bandwidth, energy or desire to try to find the top-whatever dunks of all-time. Frankly, most of the dunks from pre-2002 probably aren’t online anyway.

So, we’ve categorized our top five Capel-era dunks after the jump. Guess what? The SuperHuman isn’t even No. 1. Hit the jump to find out who defied gravity … and made some fool get disowned by his mother, dumped by this girlfriend and mocked by teammates.

Have a favorite dunk of the Capel era that we missed? Send it to us. If it’s worthy, we’ll add it to the list. And trust us, we looked at a ton of Griffin dunks.

5. Nate Carter — Texas Tech, Feb. 2, 2007 (0:21)

Let’s face it. If it weren’t for Nate Carter in 2007, that Sooner team would have been absolutely horrid. Carter was pretty much the only bright spot during Capel’s first year. The boys went 6-10 in Big 12 play, which included seven losses in their last eight games of the season. Effin’ brutal. But Carter’s drive and dunk here against Tech during a 75-61 home win was pretty sweet. Thanks, Nate.

4. Keith Clark — vs. West Virginia, Dec. 29, 2007

Big Keith “Moose” Clark. A guy with tons of potential who could really never put it all together. And that really sucks because Clark really showed off that potential with this two-handed power move during a double-overtime win over West Virginia in 2007. Clark finished the game with only seven points, but most Sooners were just impressed by what was to come in the future. Yeah, that never happened.

3. Blake Griffin — Mt. St. Mary’s, Jan. 7, 2008 (5:44)

The first from the SuperHuman. Yeah, we know this is a meaningless home game against Mt. Saint Mary’s. But the fact that Jesus doesn’t even like the kid Griffin posterized in this video anymore, pushes it into the top 5. There are actually a few great Griffin dunks in this game. But like we said, we could post probably about 20 great BGriff dunks if we felt so inclined. Or weren’t so damn lazy.

2. Blake Griffin — at Texas A&M, Feb. 2, 2008 (0:16)

To this day, this is by far my favorite Blake Griffin dunk. I probably dig it up on YouTube once a month at work and just giggle like Mr. Burns.  Griffin absolutely abuses the farm Ags with this wicked tomahawk stuff in College Station. Unfortunately, OU fell 60-52 … a loss that started a painful three-game skid. Hey, at least we won a tournament game that season, right?

1. Willie Warren — at Iowa State, Jan. 31, 2009

Are you sitting down? Because I’m about to make a bold, bold claim. Willie Warren’s dunk on Iowa State’s Justin Hamilton is probably one of the best dunks in OU history. Granted, drinking has caused my memory to go to hell and there could be thousands that I’m missing, forgetting or just never saw. But let’s put this into perspective. Hamilton is a 6-foot-11 center; granted he’s a goofy white dude from Utah. But Warren is “listed” at 6-4. And he completely ignores Hamilton was ever born on his way to the hole. Very, very nice.