The Eagles balled out at the Palestra, including a Cooper DeJean alley-oop and a trick shot from Nakobe Dean
DeJean, a former high school basketball star, won the knockout competition and helped his team win the three-point contest. But his oop from Saquon Barkley stole the show.
The Eagles aren’t just great on the gridiron.
Earlier this week, the Birds took their talents to the Palestra to play a few games and show off their skills on the court.
Predictably, former high school basketball star Cooper DeJean showed off, winning knockout and leading his team to victory in the three-point competition. But the highlight — at least of this video — might be Nakobe Dean’s trick shot at the end, which looked like something from the Harlem Globetrotters.
But Dean’s shot isn’t the play from the Palestra that’s really turning heads. That came when DeJean linked up with Saquon Barkley for an alley-oop worthy of the NBA Dunk Contest. With the whole team watching, Barkley went between the legs and off the backboard to DeJean, sending teammates — and even assistant coach Connor Barwin — into a frenzy.
For DeJean, the high-flying dunk is nothing new. Former AAU teammate Chase Courbat told The Inquirer last year that the Eagles cornerback started dunking in eighth grade, when he was only 5-foot-9. As he grew older, the slams became more impressive.
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“For him to be a point guard, and he was able to post up a guy in the block, drop step, and dunk all over them like they weren’t even standing there, it was pretty crazy,” Courbat said.
“Like I was our big guy, and we’d have plays where I’d run the guard and throw him a pass into the post and he’d just drop step and dunk on somebody,” Courbat said. “Pretty much every dunk he did, it was like, ‘Wow.’”
The Eagles are lucky DeJean didn’t grow to be a few inches taller, otherwise he might be a Sixer right now (they certainly could use him).
Barkley, meanwhile, wasn’t as prolific a high school basketball player as DeJean, but he was “a hell of a street basketball player” — and it’s a testament to his skill that he managed to go between the legs with his giant quads.
Cam Jurgens, who also played basketball in high school, won the team’s free throw competition.