From voted into the NCAA Dunk Contest to Dunk Contest champion, Jacob Tucker became the newest March Madness Cinderella on Thursday. In Houston, site of the Final Four, some of college basketball’s best shooters and dunkers gathered for the three-point shooting and slam dunk contest, and it was the little guy from tiny Illinois College that brought home the biggest prize. Tucker, who staged a grassroots campaign centered around a Youtube video to gain entrance into the contest, wowed the crowd and judges with his 50-inch vertical and dunking creativity.
Jacob Tucker, Of Illinois College, Wins 2011 NCAA Dunk Contest At Final Four
Tucker doesn’t look like a dunker -- the 5-foot-10 guard looks more prepared for a lab than a basketball court -- but his explosiveness was evident from the beginning. Check out the video from the contest, provided by ESPN’s Youtube channel.
To say the Illinois College basketball program is little-known would be an understatement. The Blueboys (seriously, can’t make this up) are members of the Midwest Conference, made up of Division III schools from the area its named after. With an enrollment of 864, Illinois College is about the size of a top classification high school in most states.
Yet there was Tucker, doing exactly what he did in his viral video: Dunking like a madman. Score one for the little guys.
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