Tiny Gallon Shatters Backboard: Oklahoma Freshman Breaks Glass (VIDEO)

Last night Gonzaga closed out the year by hosting Oklahoma in Spokane. Early in the second half the game was interrupted when 296-pound Sooners freshman Tiny Gallon shattered the backboard on an unsuccessful alley-oop attempt. According to the Dagger, the destruction caused a 52 minute delay. Scroll down for video.

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Comments

[JWB2012]

02:25 PM on 01/03/2010

They can land a Rover on Mars...

[SnDReturns]

08:14 AM on 01/03/2010

Ka-dunk!

[Ambient70]

02:03 PM on 01/02/2010

Wow, some of you act like he had the forethough­t to be like "Yeah, during the game I'm going to purposeful­ly miss a show and break the backboard, that'll show them! Hahahaaaaa­!!!"

Seriously, he was catching his balance. Not at all a big deal. Cool to watch, though. I bet Shaw was proud :P

[Michael Martinez]

12:47 PM on 01/02/2010

From the view he was trying to catch his balance to prevent crashing to the floor. He was bumped in the paint and the alley oop pass was deflected.­..his momentum carried him forward then he got bumped...s­o naturally he latched onto the nearest thing to keep from falling. Breaking rims has been done before...a couple of times in the NBA--if I recall--Sh­aq did it twice. Pro rims and college rims normally have some give and some springs to prevent breakage. In this case...I think it failed. Luckily no one was hurt.

[soonerdru]

11:44 AM on 01/02/2010

Give the kid a break, yeah, sure, he was trying to do it. Maybe the people of Washington should buy better equipment. LOL, broke your backboard, took your pro team, and named it Thunder! LOL.

[AbeMartin]

10:39 AM on 01/02/2010

My oh, my. I certainly hope the Gonzaga Athlectics Department paid for the backboard with their American Expess Card. That way they can get a full refund or a replacemen­t.

[DickTater]

09:05 AM on 01/02/2010

I saw the whole thing live, replay after replay. I thought he was being stoopid about grabbing the rim, especially after missing the catch from the lob pass. Yes perhaps he was rim grabbing because he was knocked off balance. Yes, the ncaa and nba allow that to avoid injury to yerself and others....­but frankly that is not what the rim is for. Us mere mortals will never actually touch a rim in our whole lives and we certainly don't count on grabbing one if our balance is impaired. I think in cases where the refs think your life wasn't in danger this should have been at the very least a technical foul and loss of posession.

I also thought rims had releases. Lastly, most players who hang on the rim deserve to...they sprung up there and give the rim some assistance with their own elevation and arm strength. This guy just plain landed with his whole weight on the rim and was not in any way using it as an element in his gymnastic ability.

I would not normally have much of a reaction or comment, but again, I saw this new year's eve and the game was postponed and they had to go to some secondary programmin­g and I thought the guy was a doof. If you can't elevate and can't keep your balance, keep yerself off the rim Tiny.

[Tmboy]

09:01 AM on 01/06/2010

Yeah dont break the glass... fall, break a bone, injure yourself, end your career. Yeah that seems rights. Ignore the humane instint to avoid falling because hey you should pay for loosing your balance.

Dbag!!!

[Volkmoidruk]

09:03 AM on 01/02/2010

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=54-6yimtj­tA

[daugav369pils]

08:10 AM on 01/02/2010

Don't NBA rims have a very strong spring on the hinge that gives way to prevent this ? Are NCAA
rims different or was this one defective or misadjuste­d?

[Gover]

09:52 AM on 01/04/2010

They do.

But in the end, the rim is bolted to the backboard. Pull hard enough, it will become unbolted.

"Break-a-w­ay rims" significan­tly reduce backboard breakage but they don't completely prevent it. Really the only way to shatter a board was to do exactly what this guy did: weigh near 300 pounds, grab the rim moving toward the basket, hang on.

[SnDReturns]

03:22 AM on 01/02/2010

D'oh!

[myoungholt]

11:30 PM on 01/01/2010

"...incred­ible show of force..."

More like an incredible show of testostero­ne and stupidity. Totally unnecessar­y delay and damage. I hope he pays through the nose.

[sagcat]

11:17 PM on 01/04/2010

Why would a student athlete have to pay for equipment broken during play? Do you honestly think he was trying to break the equipment?

a 300 pound person should be able to hang and swing on a rim without breaking the glass. The equipment was faulty. Players dunk with far more than 300 pounds of pressure on a regular basis. Tiny didn't appear to add any force beyond his own weight when the glass shattered, and he didn't hang on the rim for any abnormal amount of time.

[GovernmentBubble]

09:28 PM on 01/01/2010

Tiny Gallon is a tremendous name for that guy.

[HGfromOmaha]

07:23 PM on 01/01/2010

Wow...his mother named him Tiny......­296 lbs....not­hing "tiny" about that "Gallon"..­..

[NorthSider]

07:53 PM on 01/02/2010

According to the Athlon Sports College Basketball Preview, "Tiny" Gallon's real name is Keith, so I guess we can attribute his nickname to someone with an ironic sense of humor. :)

[JoeCorrao]

05:45 PM on 01/01/2010

the fans cheered poor craftsmans­hip?

[BigMike75]

06:07 PM on 01/01/2010

No, breaking a backboard in basketball is sort of a mythical thing. The thing is this clown didn't even dunk the ball, he was just rim grabbing after not catching the lob.

[mrstu]

08:03 PM on 01/01/2010

To be fair, the announcers suggest, and I have to agree, that it looks like the reason he grabbed it wasn't to be cool or something, but to keep his balance. If you watch from about 1:05, it gives what I think is the best view... he gets hit while in mid air by number 00 on the other team, from the way his lower body moves, I'd be willing to bet that if he hadn't grabbed the rim he probably would have gone off the end of the court and potentiall­y been injured