Engineering the Play: ‘Hello, Powder Springs, Georgia!’

Engineering the Play: ‘Hello, Powder Springs, Georgia!’Engineering the Play: ‘Hello, Powder Springs, Georgia!’

AUBURN, Ala. – You already know him as Ice. But maybe it's time we start referring to Isaac Okoro as Bounceman after Auburn's star freshman elevated for a monster dunk over the 6-foot-10 Ejike Obinna in Wednesday night's win over Vanderbilt. 

"I was surprised when he did it," fellow freshman Devan Cambridge said. "That's McEachern Isaac. That's high school Isaac. That was crazy. He's got my title now. He's Bounceman."

Okoro has quickly become a fan favorite for the Tigers. The freshman has started all 14 games this season and is currently second on the team with 13.6 points per game. His signature moment had come when he hit the game-winning shot to beat South Alabama on the road, but it's going to be hard to top Wednesday's dunk that ended up on Sportscenter's Top 10 plays later that night. 

The play itself seemingly came out of nowhere. Auburn wasn't in the middle of a run. It didn't come in transition. Instead, it happened coming out of a media timeout. 

The Tigers were leading, 57-49, with less than 12 minutes left in the second half. They were inbounding the ball at midcourt, and it only made sense for head coach Bruce Pearl to draw up a play for Okoro seeing as he was leading the team with 17 points at the time.

"We were getting J'Von [McCormick] downhill, but we thought getting more size downhill would be better," Pearl said after the game. "Mike Burgomaster and Chad Prewett put that in my head, and it was an easy call."

"It's a play for me to pass the ball to Danjel (Purifoy), who passed it right back, and then spread everybody out," Okoro said. "Once I blew past my man, I saw the big man stepped up pretty late, so it was my time to go dunk it on him.

"I really don't think about it," the freshman added. "I just go up there and dunk it."

Count Austin Wiley among those who didn't think Okoro was going to dunk it. It was Wiley's man who switched over to try and challenge on the play, and when that happened, Wiley just assumed Okoro was going to lay it up and try to draw a foul. 

"I thought he was going to lay it up, and then he just kept going up," Wiley said. "He jammed it, and I was going crazy. It was a good energy shift in the building."

The sold-out crowd at Auburn Arena had quieted some coming out of the media timeout, but when Okoro threw it down, the place went crazy. Half the people stood stunned in amazement of what they just witnessed while the other half were losing their minds. 

One of the best reactions came from walk-on Preston Cook. He stood on the Auburn bench with eyes wide, mouth open and hands over his face. Since the play happened, the screenshot of Cook's expression has been circulating around social media. 

"That was crazy," Cook said. "That was a heck of a play by Isaac. He's tough. That was a great one."

Andy Burcham, the Voice of the Auburn Tigers, had one of the better vantage points of the dunk from his seat at midcourt. It, too, caught him off guard, but he kept his composure and delivered a memorable call that paid homage to one of his predecessors. 

"It was a big enough dunk that I quoted Jim Fyffe on the call and said, 'Hello, Powder Springs, Georgia,'" Burcham said. "I was surprised (Okoro) had as wide of a lane to go to the basket, but I knew what he was going to do. You could tell. He was driving to the basket with purpose.

"Afterwards, just watching his reaction, he played to the crowd a little bit. He played to the Jungle a little bit, and they responded."

Okoro finished with a career-high 23 points to lead the Tigers past Vanderbilt. It's the 11th time this season that he's scored in double figures, and his field goal percentage (57.7) currently ranks third in the SEC and is seventh nationally among freshmen. 

"He's a beast," senior Danjel Purifoy said. "He's not a freshman in our eyes. He plays like a man, and that's what we expect from him."