Rider’s Ings on viral dunk: ‘Air is different up there’
LAWRENCEVILLE >> When Christian Ings opened up a group chat message from a teammate and saw the tweet, he realized what was about to happen.
That dunk, the one from Sunday afternoon, where Ings hammered home a lob from Stevie Jordan, had gone viral.
“When it said ‘SportsCenter,’ I knew the dunk was really major,” Ings said following Wednesday afternoon’s practice.
And 362K views, 43 comments, 1,410 retweets and 13.1K likes later, most college basketball fans had seen Rider’s freshman guard deliver one of the best dunks of the season.
“I didn’t know it was going to go that wild, that viral,” Ings said.
Ings and Jordan hang around after practice sometimes to throw alley-oops to each other, but they hadn’t connected on one until Sunday. Still, Ings said he remembered telling Jordan that he felt like he was going to get a dunk that day.
The moment came in the second half as the Broncs led by 29 and set up for an out-of-bounds play under the basket.
“I told him he could throw it to the top of the shot clock and I’ll go get it,” Ings said. “We came out for the inbound play and all four of their players were facing Stevie, all below the MAAC symbol. … I just ran through the middle to see if I could get it. It was a great pass and I just finished it.”
In the video, you can see Dimencio Vaughn mouthing ‘Oh my God,’ when he sees the play developing.
“Chris is a very special dunker as a freshman,” Vaughn said. “I look at Chris at I’m like, ‘go.’ I looked at Stevie like throw it and didn’t have to say anything. It was eye contact. I saw Chris go get it and he finished with a very aggressive dunk.”
Jordan lobbed the ball way above the 10-foot high rim and let Ings do the rest.
“The air is definitely different up there,” Ings said. “That’s a different atmosphere. It’s real peaceful. Very lonely.”
The Broncs (14-9, 8-5) are back in action on Friday night when they face Siena (11-10, 7-5) at the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., where the Saints are a perfect 10-0.
Ings is hoping that dunk acts as a spark for the remaining seven games.
“I felt like I hit a wall the past few games,” said Ings, who is averaging 5.8 points and two assists in 21 minutes per game. “I had a talk with coach (Kevin) Baggett and he told me it was about that time of the year where all freshmen hit walls. I’m just mainly focused on getting my body right and being able to play at the highest peak that I can play at for the rest of the season.”