Reviving Louisville basketball’s dunking culture only the beginning of James Scott's story

Reviving Louisville basketball’s dunking culture only the beginning of James Scott’s story

Posted by author February 3, 2025 Basketball

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Sophomore forward James Scott, who followed Pat Kelsey from Charleston to Louisville basketball, is on pace to join the program’s high-profile list of prolific dunkers.
Entering February, the 6-foot-11 native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, ranked second nationally in dunks and converting 2-point field goals this season.

On a historic night for Chucky Hepburn, this pass, admittedly, wasn’t his best: a lob to a rolling James Scott that began its downward trajectory as it crossed over the restricted-area arch.

Thankfully for the senior point guard, to borrow a phrase from the Louisville basketball team’s official account on X, formerly Twitter, an alley-oop to the 6-foot-11, 220-pound sophomore forward is “never out of the question.”

“Whenever I see James down low, and the big steps up, I’m able to just throw it up to him wherever and he goes and gets it,” Hepburn said after the Cardinals’ rout of SMU on Jan. 21 in Dallas, during which the aforementioned connection with Scott counted for one of his program-record 16 assists.

“That’s why I love playing with him; because I just throw it up.”

“They have a synergy, man,” said Georgia Tech coach Damon Stoudamire, who had the connection at the top of his scouting report for what ended in a 77-70 win for his Yellow Jackets last weekend in Atlanta. “If you know, you know.”

Dunking and U of L — they just go together. Look no further than the beloved logo at midcourt of the KFC Yum! Center, Louie the Cardinal throwing down a one-handed slam. Darrell Griffith, Pervis Ellison, Montrezl Harrell — the list goes on.

So, in Year 1 of what Pat Kelsey has dubbed a revival, no player is doing more to get Louisville back to its high-flying roots than Scott, a Fayetteville, North Carolina, native who followed the coach to the 502 from Charleston and has made himself right at home as a key contributor in the program’s first undefeated January since 2009.

The sky’s the limit, but that might be an understatement considering his work ethic — and, of course, his hops.

“He’s one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached,” Kelsey said during a Jan. 23 interview with The Field of 68. “I’ve never met a more devoted, committed basketball player — really. I mean, I’ve coached hundreds of players; and I’ve never seen anybody who you absolutely, positively have to drag out of the gym.

“He’s a savant in terms of his understanding, at a young age, of basketball concepts. I think he’s close to leading the country in dunks, but there’s so much more to him.”

Tony Jones took over the reins of Seventy-First High School’s boys basketball team in 2021, ahead of Scott’s junior season, and proceeded to lead the Falcons from a losing record the year prior to the Class 3A state championship game.

How did things click so quickly? Everyone bought into their roles, he said; and Scott’s was an obvious one: “He’s been a pogo stick his whole life.”

“We told him, ‘You have to dunk everything. Put fear in the other team,'” Jones said. “‘You dunk on them a few times, and they’re going to get out of the way.'”

The Fayetteville Observer crowned Scott its Most Improved Player of the 2021-22 season after he bumped up his averages from 5.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game as a sophomore to 12 and 11.9, respectively — with 3.1 blocks to boot — as a junior. Despite coming up short in the state championship, he earned Most Outstanding Player honors by going for 21 and 10 against West Charlotte.

“He trusted me and trusted what we were trying to build there,” Jones said. “And he flourished in the system.”

A few months after his junior season ended, before transferring to E.E. Smith for his final go-around, Scott committed to play for Kelsey at Charleston over offers from programs such as Appalachian State, Eastern Kentucky, Georgia State, Loyola Chicago, New Mexico State and Ohio. At the time, he succinctly summed up his decision by saying, “Why wait if I feel like that’s the best fit for me?”

When Scott signed with the Cougars, Kelsey said in a statement that he “reminds me of a young Marcus Camby,” who spent 17 seasons in the NBA and in 2007 was named its Defensive Player of the Year. That’s pretty good company to be in as a 17-year-old; and Scott showed plenty of flashes of his potential while securing a spot on the Coastal Athletic Association’s All-Rookie Team as the fourth-youngest player across Division I in 2023-24.

“He takes his craft seriously, and it’s been paying off,” Jones said. “I’m extremely proud of him.”

After Scott went for 11 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in 26 minutes of Louisville’s win over North Carolina on New Year’s Day, Kelsey pulled back the curtains on his persona.

“He’s a treat, man,” the coach told reporters. “He would rather get six root canals than come up here and stand in front of this microphone and talk to you guys. We’ve got to work on that.”

“Once you get to know him and talk to him, he’s pretty funny,” Jones added. “But on the court, man, he takes care of business.”

Indeed, Scott’s game has done plenty of talking to this point of his sophomore campaign.

We’ll dive into other aspects of it in a moment, but let’s start with his calling card: the dunks. Fans can’t get enough of them after the Cards, per BartTorvik.com, totaled only 46 (209th in DI) on 54 attempts in Year 1 under former coach Kenny Payne and 75 on 79 tries (108th) in Year 2. Their 78 on 92 attempts (19th) in Kelsey’s first season are the most since they went 92 for 106 in 2019-20 under Chris Mack.

At the end of January, with 10 games remaining in the regular season, Scott ranked second across DI with 49 dunks on 54 attempts — three shy of his freshman total of 52. That’s a big reason why he entered February with the country’s second-best conversion rate from 2-point range, 81.4%. And his offensive rating on KenPom.com, 137.1, was good for second in the ACC and 14th nationally.

In his first 21 games with U of L, Scott averaged 2.3 dunks per. If he keeps at that pace, he’ll go down as the program’s first player to do so since Harrell in 2014-15 — and enter the ACC Tournament with sole possession of third place in the single-season record book. Harrell holds spots Nos. 1 and 2 on that list, having flushed 97 in 2013-14 and 80 in 2014-15, followed by Ellison and Chane Behanan with 59 in 1987-88 and 2012-13, respectively. Samardo Samuels is the only other player who has surpassed 50 in a campaign, doing so in 2008-09.

“Anytime you’re compared to (Harrell), somebody who won Sixth Man of the Year in the NBA and had a great career in the NBA, you love that,” Scott said.

Although Kelsey preaches a one-game-at-a-time mentality, he has praised Scott for taking it upon himself to get ahead on his scouting of future opponents. It’s not uncommon to spot him before tipoff seated in a chair near the court with an iPad in his hands, running through possessions on Synergy.

“He is a voracious film-watcher,” Kelsey said.

Scott attributes his meticulous preparation to his veteran teammates, saying: “I’m just trying to get where they are.” Jones, however, told The Courier Journal that’s always been the case with him.

“He was always very curious about figuring out what defenses were trying to do to prevent him from scoring and how he could affect games in ways other than scoring,” the coach said.

To that point, Scott entered February having corralled 17 more rebounds as a sophomore (135) than he did as a freshman (118) and was Louisville’s top board-getter in nine of its 21 games. He had blocked a team-high 19 shots and was second in double-doubles with three. He had already surpassed his 2023-24 assist total, too.

Then, there’s his screening ability — a must in the Cards’ five-out offense.

“I think he’s one of the best screeners in our conference,” Kelsey said after a Jan. 14 win at Syracuse, during which Scott had 10 points and eight rebounds while tying a career high with three assists in 24 minutes. “So many things that happen — and shots that are generated — so many times are finished by a James Scott screen. There’s an art to that, and he studies it.”

A former Charleston teammate, Australian sharpshooter Reyne Smith, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of those screens — jockeying for position atop the DI leaderboard for made 3s with 82.

“When a play gets called for him, and you’re on the end of the screen, you just really want to do your job,” Scott said after Smith went for 25 points in a Jan. 11 win at Pittsburgh. “Because you know that, if you do your job and he gets any type of space, he’s going to hit the shot.”

Smith feels the same way about Scott playing above the rim: “Usually, once I see (a lob) go up,” he said, “I just kind of run back on defense.”

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.