Alley-oop (basketball)

An alley-oop in basketball is an offensive play in which one player throws the ball near the basket to a teammate who jumps, catches the ball in mid air and immediately scores a basket, usually with a slam dunk. The alley-oop combines elements of teamwork, pinpoint passing, timing, and dunking.

History of the alley-oop

Al Tucker and his brother Gerald at Oklahoma Baptist University are sometimes credited with being the first to use the alley-oop in the mid-1960s. Others credit David Thompson as the first player to execute the classic alley-oop play while at North Carolina State University, with his teammates Monte Towe and Tim Stoddard performing the necessary lob passes. NCSU's Thompson popularized the play during the early 1970s, exploiting his 44-inch vertical leap to make the above-the-rim play a recurring staple in the Wolfpack's offensive attack. Because dunking was illegal in college basketball at that time, upon catching the pass, Thompson would simply drop the ball through the hoop - never dunking one until the final play of the final home game of his career. During the 1990s NBA stars turned the alley-oop into the game's ultimate quick strike weapon. North Carolina State also won a national championship on what could be considered the most famous alley-oop of all time against the University of Houston. With time running out and the score tied in the 1983 championship game in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Dereck Whittenburg shot short of the rim, which effectively functioned as a pass to Lorenzo Charles, who caught the ball and stuffed it through the net to win the title.

Examples

Normally, an alley-oop involves having a player other than the dunker throw the ball into mid-air. The play can be difficult to execute during a game because it requires unspoken communication between the passer and the recipient of the pass. A player charging toward the basket may point upward, signaling that he is ready to receive an alley-oop. The passer must be able to anticipate the recipient's movement toward the basket and then time the pass appropriately.

On occasion, the passer will throw the alley-oop off of the backboard to a trailing recipient for the dunk. This is often a more difficult alley-oop to complete, and it tends to occur outside of officially-sanctioned basketball games, in which the downside of a missed dunk is lower. The move is often used in slam-dunk contests. For example, at the 2005 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Steve Nash used the soccer move of a header#Noun to place the ball in the air near the rim for teammate Amaré Stoudemire to catch and jam.

Rarely, the dunker himself will throw the ball, often bouncing it off the floor or backboard. During the flow of a normal game, this is difficult to accomplish without either committing a traveling violation, or simply creating the needless risk of a turnover. Consequently, this move tends to be restricted to slam-dunk contests.

An Alley-oop is often combined with other tricks, such as a tomahawk, or a 360° spin. Many halftime shows feature trick slam dunks, which involve spins, flips and alley oops.

Origin of the term

The term "alley-oop" is derived from the French term allez-oup, the cry of a circus acrobat about to leap. The term "Alley Oop" was first used in the 1950s by the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL to describe a high arcing pass to wide receiver R.C. Owens,who would outleap smaller cornerbacks for touchdown receptions ("The Catch", the famous Dwight Clark touchdown reception from Joe Montana by which the 49ers gained entry into their first Super Bowl was also an "Alley Oop" pass) and later became more well-known from its use in basketball. The play was called "Alley Oop" after the comic strip caveman.

In popular culture

In the 2008 film Semi-Pro, protagonist Jackie Moon invents the alley-oop after being knocked unconscious and speaking with his deceased mother in a depiction of Heaven.

References