So ESPN is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the slam dunk, which allegedly was "invented" by Oklahoma A&M's 7-footer Bob Kurland on Dec. 16, 1944 in a game against Temple. (No YouTube or ESPN Top 10 highlights for that one).

The College GameDay crew and some current and former players and coaches had some good (and not some good) nominations for "greatest dunks/dunkers of all-time," including Clyde Drexler, Vince Carter and, for this season, Ohio State's Sam Thompson.

It got me thinking what fans consider the greatest dunks and dunkers in UConn history. In my eight years on the beat, no one's been better than Stanley Robinson. He literally looked like he was bouncing off a trampoline on some of his dunks. His most memorable, to me, came in the famous six-overtime game vs. Syracuse in 2009. Here it is, at about the :17-second mark in this clip:



I also remember watching Jim Calhoun on the sidelines as the play transpired. He popped up from his chair and was ready to pull "Sticks" out of the game had he missed. But he didn't miss, and Calhoun folded his arms, looked up in the sky and left Robinson in the game.

So I ask fans who've watched a lot more UConn basketball than me over the years: Who are the greatest dunkers in UConn history? What are the greatest dunks? And I mean in-game dunks.

Dunk contests are fun:



But in-game dunks are more impressive, in my opinion.

And we can include opponents against UConn, as well. This may not be the greatest, but it's one of the most memorable, considering how unlikely it seemed at the time:



As for the greatest dunk I've ever witnessed in person (in a game), my mind keeps going back to Julius Page of Pitt in a game against Providence in the early 2000's. I can't find it on YouTube, but here's another Page dunk that displays the type of athleticism this kid had:

UConn returns home Wednesday night to try to snap its two-game losing streak, and it won't be easy against a very good Harvard team. The Crimson and Huskies each got the same amount of votes (41 apiece) in this week's AP Top 25 poll.

Been getting a lot of feedback through email and Twitter lately about how Niels Giffey isn't involved enough in the UConn offense, and that the team doesn't run enough plays for him.

Giffey leads the nation in 3-point shooting at a ridiculous 61.8 percent (21-for-34). And yet he's only taking just over four shots per game, and only 2.4 from 3-point land. So, it would make sense for him to get up more shots.

The first thing to understand is this: Giffey isn't strong off the bounce and isn't really able to create his own shot very well. Few would dispute this fact, including Kevin Ollie and Giffey himself.

"Niels is not a big guy to put it on the floor and do two crossovers and get to the lane," said Ollie. "That’s not his game. His game is spotting up."

Added Giffey: "Guys like me, Lasan (Kromah) and Omar (Calhoun), we’re never going to be the guys who just break down a guy from the top of the key."

So there's that. Now, to the point that UConn doesn't run enough plays for Giffey to get off shots, Ollie had this to say: “I’d like him to shoot 10 shots, wide-open. If I can diagram a play to get that, I’d definitely like to do that. You’ve got scouting reports, too. Scouting reports say, 'We’re not leaving Niels. If the penetration comes, we’re not leaving Niels' ... A lot of teams are switching pick-and-rolls on our pick-and-pops. We put in some different sets that can move the basketball, and hopefully that works. Hopefully, we can get more spacing, more penetration, drawing kicks for Niels to get off.”

Said Giffey: “I definitely have to use screens better … That’s also a team effort, I think ... That’s kind of like a team effort to get everybody back involved. We can’t play a slow-paced game where it’s a couple of guys who do one-on-one moves. We’ve got to play as a team, share the ball the same way we did in the beginning of the season where we really attacked the paint.”

He added: 

A couple of other quick tidbits:

*** Ollie on whether Calhoun is still not 100-percent after off-season hip surgeries: “It’s hard for me to say that, you’d have to ask him that question. Whenever I ask him, a teenager will say, ‘I’m good, I’m ready to play.’ Just like my son. Every time I ask him something, ‘I’m good.’ I think he’s fine. I think it’s more mental now. He’s getting some wide-open looks. I don’t think it’s his hips that are making him miss those shots. He’s just got to keep getting in the lab, keep shooting, keep shooting with confidence. They’re going to keep giving him those shots ‘til he starts knocking some down.”

*** Harvard has won nine straight games, since a 70-62 loss to Top 25 Colorado on the road on Nov. 24. The most impressive thing about the Crimson's win streak is that seven of those games were away from home: three in the Great Alaska Shootout (beating Denver, Green Bay and TCU), as well as at Northeastern, BU and Fordham. The Eagles also beat BC at home.

*** UConn has won nine straight over Harvard, dating back to an 80-70 loss on Dec. 22, 1972. There have been some close calls along the way, however, including a narrow, 79-73 win over the Crimson on Dec. 6, 2009 at Gampel in which Jeremy Lin scored 30 points and had this impressive dunk:

On Dec. 7, 2009 (a day that will live in infamy?), Jeremy Lin dropped 30 points on UConn in Harvard's 79-73 loss at Gampel. Lin did a little of everything -- a resounding jam in traffic late in the game, a massive block of a Jerome Dyson shot, and a 3-pointer and tough, off-balance jumper over the final 1:07 that kept the game close.

Here's my game story from that night. It's interesting to see what Jim Calhoun had to say about Lin at the time, comparing him to "a little more athletic Doron Sheffer."

"What I really like about him," Calhoun continued, "is that he's athletic, more than you think, he controls his temperament to a real nice tempo, and he knows how to play. He's one of the better kids, including Big East guards, who have come in here in quite some time."

Somewhat prescient, I'd say.

Added Dyson: "He's a great player. He made a lot of shots for them and kept them in the game."

Jim Calhoun put it succinctly, as only he could:

"You keep fooling with Mother Nature, she'll put that lightning bolt right through us."

Break out the Calhoun-to-English dictionary and here's the translation: if UConn continues to play like this – weak off the boards, hapless foul shooting and, perhaps most worrisome, startlingly thin off the bench – they could be in some serious trouble, starting on Wednesday night against fifth-ranked Kentucky at Madison Square Garden. The Huskies simply couldn't put the pesky Harvard on Sunday, despite pumping their lead up to as many as 16 points two different times.

"If we play in spurts against Kentucky," Calhoun concluded, "we can't beat them."

The 14th-ranked Huskies will more than take the box score-filling effort of Jerome Dyson, who fell an assist shy of a triple-double (24 points, 14 rebounds, nine dimes) while doing his best to guard Crimson top scorer Jeremy Lin. They'll gladly take the 18 points and 12 boards from Stanley Robinson, the 20 points from Kemba Walker and 12 off the bench from Gavin Edwards.

But with freshman center Alex Oriakhi turning in his "worst performance in a Connecticut uniform," per Calhoun, and just five points coming from other sources, the Huskies clearly need a more balanced team effort Wednesday night.

Unless, of course, you ask the UConn players themselves.

"We don't really base our play off a previous game," said Edwards. "We'll just kind of take a step forward after this and get ready to play Kentucky on Wednesday."

Added Walker: "We have no reason to be concerned. As long as we go in with our game plan, we should be perfectly fine."

***Calhoun's enthusiasm over Dyson's overall effort was somewhat tempered.

"He was brilliant, at times. But he's reflective somewhat of our team."

Late in the game, Dyson was called for a charging foul – one of numerous times on Sunday where he aimlessly drove into trouble.

"If he continues doing that, it will cost us a game," Calhoun predicted.

***The coach didn't mince words regarding freshman center Alex Oriakhi:


"That was his worst game in a Connecticut uniform. He couldn't catch the ball, couldn't rebound the ball, couldn't play defense. Besides that, he was terrific."

In fact, Oriakhi's Okwandu-esque effort had Calhoun wishing he had played Big Chuck for more than just the game's first three minutes.

"Charles did nothing today to deserve only playing three minutes," Calhoun said. "I probably should have given him a chance."

Indeed, Okwandu stuck a 13-footer just over a minute into the game and managed to grab a rebound and block a shot in his short stint.

Back to Oriakhi: "I don’t think he's getting better," said Calhoun. "As a matter of fact offensively, he's heading the other way. He's a freshman, that can happen to you. Alex is too good a player, too good an athlete to play the way he played."

***Edwards had six blocked shots and now has 23 in the Huskies' first seven games.

"Those are starting to get to Hasheem and Emeka numbers," Calhoun noted.

***Jamal Coombs-McDaniel wasn't any better than his high school buddy Oriakhi. The frosh had one point (1-for-4 foul shooting) in eight minutes.

"He's our best 3-point shooter in practice," Calhoun said. "(In games), he's not just missing, he's putting up air balls."

***Calhoun was far more complimentary – and rightfully so – of Lin, who poured in a career high-tying 30 points, including the Crimson's final 11 of the game (replete with a spectacular driving, two-handed dunk with 13.5 seconds left).

"What I really like about him as that he's athletic, more than you think," Calhoun said. "He controls his temperament to a real nice tempo, he knows how to play. He's one of the better kids, including Big East guards, who have come in here in quite some time."

"He's a little more athletic Doron Sheffer … I can't think of a team he wouldn't play for."

*** Harvard coach Tommy Amaker blew off several telephone interview requests over the past week, and apparently did the same to the UConn radio team prior to Sunday's game.

***In the "Just Sayin'" Dept.: Notre Dame's Tim Abromaitis, a Farmington resident and son of former UConn star Jim Abromaitis, poured in 31 for the Fighting Irish today in a win over Central Florida.

***UConn is offering a holiday ticket promotion to fans of its nationally-ranked UConn men's and women's basketball programs for a total of five games over the upcoming holidays.

For each ticket purchased (up to a maximum of eight) for any of the selected games, purchasers will receive an additional ticket for the same game at no charge.

The promotion is for two women's games and three men's games. The women's games are Sunday, Dec. 20 against Iona (6 p.m.) at Gampel and Wednesday, Dec. 23 against No. 2 Stanford (5:30 p.m.) at the XL Center.

The men's games, all at the XL Center, are Sunday, Dec. 20 against Central Florida (1 p.m.), Tuesday, Dec. 22 against Maine (7 p.m.)and Sunday, Dec. 27 against Iona (2 p.m.). Orders can be placed by going to UConnHuskies.com and clicking on the "Buy Tickets" link in the Ticket Center. Fans can then click the "Promotions" link.