Valdes climbs the ladder
While Hawaii beat UC Irvine Thursday night behind a barrage of 14 3-pointers, tying a program record, there was a singular play inside the arc that stood out perhaps most of all.
With Irvine leading 11-9 and 7-6 center Mamadou Ndiaye out of the game after picking up an early foul, UH wing Aaron Valdes snuck behind the Anteaters’ defense and caught a lob pass from point guard Roderick Bobbitt, adjusted the trajectory of the ball, then threw it down one-handed. Emphatically. If he’d taken a phone up there with him, he’d probably have had enough time to take a selfie.
Here was Oceanic’s capture of the play:
ICYMI: sweet Bobbitt to Valdes alley-oop early in the half #boom #HawaiiMBB | 5 assists for @Kingbobbitt5 this half pic.twitter.com/a7rNKsY2MO
— Oceanic Sports (@OCSportsTV) February 12, 2016
Needless to stay, Valdes got a lot of feedback about the play.
“I got a lot from my friends back home, watching videos of it, and my family too,” he said Friday. “So they’re happy. It was cool. When it happened, too, it felt like the Nebraska dunk (last season). Me and Rod made eye contact and he put it perfectly on the dot.
“I was telling the guys on TV, that was probably top three here. One of my favorite ones.”
He also drove straight through the paint for a tomahawk slam over the ‘Eaters in mop-up time.
In my opinion, the Valdes lob was the best dunk in the building since Roderick Flemings reached way behind his head on an errant lob pass from Jeremy Lay and threw it down against New Mexico State in 2010.
What do you think? Do you have a favorite dunk at the Sheriff that comes to mind?
Not only one of all time best dunks for UH but did you see highlights of NBA dunk contest. Gotta be best ever!! Talk about flying! Breathtaking!
Haha! That’s my video upload. Thanks for using it! I miss my PC that could do that.
I loved these dunks:
AC Carter did an inbound dunk that Alika lobbed in an exhibition game that wasn’t on any TV. Sad.
Alika also threw another crazy inbound pass to AC from the stairs during a midnight ohana when they were batman and robin
Galloway’s dunk against Kansas
Rod Fleming also had another rebound dunk that was ridiculous. I made an animated gif of it but I can’t find it.
Valdes’ other dunk he mentioned above against Nebraska where he caught it one handed again and turned it around and dunked it.
Valdes also had an inbound pass dunk this year that I’m not sure what game it was in but I thought it was on TV.
And who can forget the dunk by Moeller on his own basket? At least on the next play he dunked on the right basket.