Video of Keion Bell's Dunk
Oct. 15, 2010
Photo Gallery 
MALIBU, Calif. -- It wasn't a question if Keion Bell would win the slam-dunk contest at Pepperdine's annual Blue & Orange Madness event in Firestone Fieldhouse. The bigger question was, how would he do it?
After Bell skied over three teammates as a freshman and five as a sophomore, he capped off his third straight dunk contest title by leaping over seven people - three of his teammates, one student manager, two women's basketball players and a child.
The dunk finished off another wildly successful Blue & Orange Madness, the annual kickoff event to the college basketball season put on by Pepperdine's Student Programming Board and the Department of Athletics. Here's a recap of the night's events:
The near-capacity crowd cheered the antics of Willie the Wave as he "surfed" across the floor, followed by a highlight video and the first performance of the season by the Pepp Band. Master of ceremonies Sam Lagana then introduced the full rosters of both the men's and women's teams to great fanfare.
Following the national anthem and a performance by Pepperdine's cheerleaders, the women's basketball team showed a video about their "Season of Service." Head coach Julie Rousseau and junior Skye Barnett took the microphone to salute the fans and ask for their support this season.
The fans then got their first look at the 2010-11 men's basketball team, which scrimmaged for the next eight minutes. The Orange squad (Gus Clardy, Taylor Darby, Hector Harold, Lorne Jackson, Jan Maehlen, Don Martin, Mychel Thompson and Caleb Willis) posted a 35-29 victory over the Blue team (Denis Agre, Keion Bell, Richard Branning, Jonathan Dupre', Tanner Kerry, Joshua Lowery, Corbin Moore and Dane Suttle Jr.) as a little less defense was played than in years past.
Blue Scoring: Bell 8, Dupre' 8, Agre 6, Suttle 3, Lowery 2, Moore 2.
Orange Scoring: Darby 11, Thompson 8, Harold 7, Jackson 3, Clardy 2, Maehlen 2, Willis 2.
After the Pepperdine dance team performed and a round of T-shirts were thrown to the crowd, the annual three-point contest between the men's and women's teams was held. The men won for the second straight year, as Richard Branning had a near-perfect final.
First Round: Dori Lansbach 27, Lorne Jackson 21; Shay Cooney-Williams 15, Dane Suttle Jr. 27; T'Keyah Shealy 24, Richard Branning 33; Kelsey Patrick 30, Hector Harold 30.
Final: Kelsey Patrick 33, Richard Branning 39.
The crowd was then entertained by the Pepperdine Step Team, followed by professional dance outfit Breaksk8, a foursome that performs on roller skates and has appeared on the likes of America's Best Dance Crew. Both one lucky Pepperdine student and one parent then attempted a half-court shot to win free tuition for a year, but neither came close.
Finally, the event that everyone was waiting for - the slam-dunk contest. Many video cameras were out, hoping to catch the magic of last year's event when footage of Bell's final dunk went onto YouTube and received more than 1.2 million hits.
The judges for the event included four former student-athletes that will be inducted into the Pepperdine Athletics Hall of Fame this weekend: Dana Jones (#2 on Pepperdine's all-time scoring list), Steve Smith, Sasha Poljak and Janna Kovacevich. Bryan Parker, one of the top point guards in Pepperdine history, was also one of the judges.
In addition to Bell, Denis Agre, Joshua Lowery, Mychel Thompson were in the competition. Thompson had one of the best dunks of the first round, taking the ball through his legs and over his head before jamming it home. Bell had two outstanding first-round dunks as well. Teammate Caleb Willis threw the ball off the shot clock, and Bell grabbed it out of air and did a windmill dunk. On his second one, Bell did a 360 while taking ball through his legs before dunking.
Thompson and Bell advanced to the finals. On Thompson's first dunk, he ran from one end of the court to the other, leaping just inside the free throw line en route to a dunk. Bell did a bounce pass to himself off the high wall behind the basket, grabbed the ball in the air and did a windmill dunk.
Thompson's time almost ran out before he did a straightforward dunk on the second round of the finals, bringing everyone to the moment they had been waiting for. Bell pulled together three of his teammates (Joshua Lowery, Richard Branning and Don Martin, all of whom stand between 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-4), student manager Derek Ramos and women's basketball players Lauren Bell and Shay Cooney-Williams to make it six. For the seventh person, he pulled a child from the audience. After a big running start on his first and only attempt, Bell cleared all seven and successfully dunked, earning a perfect score from the judges.
The exhibition portion of the basketball schedule begins on November 1 when the women's team hosts Westmont, while the men's squad entertains La Verne on November 5. Both exhibitions are at 7 p.m.
