If you’ve watched Joe Alexander dunk, you could probably guess he’d like to inflict great damage on a backboard. Well, you’d be right.

“I intend to break one,” Alexander said. “That’s one of my goals. The goal of all dunkers is to break a backboard.”

The stars align tonight. Raftery will offer his colorful commentary for tonight’s 7 p.m. ESPN game when WVU plays host to Pitt inside the Coliseum.

“I have no idea how you’d do it, but my guess is you have to weigh a lot and you need to throw it down really hard,” said Alexander, who leads WVU with 15.1 points and 6.0 rebounds per game after finishing with 32 points and 10 rebounds Saturday against Connecticut.  

In defense of Joe, this was not something he just came up with during an interview. It was mentioned to him that Pitt plays WVU tonight and that ESPN’s Bill Raftery would be calling the game. He had no clue who Raftery was and was unaware Pitt’s Jerome Lane had once shattered a backboard and caused Raftery to exclaim “Send it in, Jerome!” 

I do, however, find it funny that Alexander and teammate Wellington Smith spend spare time finding ways to break a backboard and that Alexander pledges to “study the science of it.”

(By the way, I want to go over a few things from the initial linked highlight. I did this already after Midnight Madness in October, but we had a significantly smaller audience back then.

First, Alexander legitimately jumps from the foul line on the first dunk. Second, that fact Alexander legitimately jumps from the foul line causes Smith to come onto the court and take his shorts off. Third, Alexander’s final dunk is actually harder than the two he tried unsuccessfully before it. Watch as he just flicks the ball in the air, times his jump to go up and get the ball and then bring it through his legs for the wicked windmill. Oh, time was nearly up, too.)