Gradey Dick almost got caught.
Kansas’ freshman wing found himself at a disadvantage during his team’s rivalry matchup against Missouri on Dec. 10 as the only defender back on defense, attempting to stop a fast break by the Tigers. Mizzou graduate senior point guard Nick Honor led the charge down the right side of the floor but he alone wasn’t intimidating enough to keep Dick from protecting the paint. Honor is 5-foot-10 — Dick is 6-foot-8.
Instead of driving to the basket, Honor lofted the ball into the air. Dick, standing just outside the restricted area, turned to try and contest whoever was going to catch the ball on the opposite side of the court.
He immediately realized it was MU 6-foot-8 freshman forward Aidan Shaw, and stepped out of the way to avoid ending up on a poster. Shaw caught Honor’s alley-oop pass and jammed it through the hoop with two hands, hanging on the rim for a little extra emphasis.
“I got that oop and the crowd was just crazy,” Shaw said. “You know, my ears popped and I just let all my energy out, like screaming. But just playing in front of a crowd like that is something I live for and that's why I play the game.”
If you went to see the Tigers play in person this season, you might’ve left Mizzou Arena feeling a strain in your neck. It’s not because you had your eyes fixed on a T-shirt blasted your way out of a cannon, goodies parachuting down from the rafters or the banners hanging from the ceiling. It’s because you were looking up at Shaw dunking a basketball.
Shaw came to Missouri as the No. 58 overall recruit in the Class of 2022. As a senior at Blue Valley High School in Stilwell, Kan., he averaged 21.2 points, 11.1 rebounds, 3.5 blocks and 2.4 assists per game and won the national High School Slam Dunk Contest in New Orleans, the site of the 2022 NCAA Final Four.
The rookie has been a regular part of the rotation in his first year wearing a Tigers uniform, but his minutes have fluctuated throughout the season. He’s played in all but two of the team’s 24 games this year, making two starts. In 11.3 minutes per game, he’s posted 3.2 points and 1.8 rebounds.
“I've talked to Aidan, so this is not a secret: Aidan's gonna be a great basketball player,” head coach Dennis Gates said. “He's in the process of that. He's not great right now, he's a good player. He has to be on the path of development.”
With a limited role on an experienced roster, Shaw doesn’t always get to show his full range of talents. But in nearly every outing, he has flexed his best skill — his verticality.
When graduate senior guard Tre Gomillion was asked to name as many things that fly as he could in 15 seconds as part of an in-game promotion, “Aidan Shaw” was fourth on the list. And it’s true. The freshman forward posted a video of himself on Twitter leaping for an unearthly 49-inch vertical on June 25. He said he had those in attendance measure it seven times to confirm the number. It would’ve broken the NBA Draft combine record set in 2021 by Keon Johnson, who now plays for the Portland Trail Blazers.
Wings would only weigh Shaw down. Rabbits have less hops. Kangaroos envy him. Birds look up to him. Clouds befriend him. Shaw is not afraid of heights, heights are afraid of him. Evil Knievel’s stunts look modest in comparison. Air is beneath him, both literally and figuratively.
Have you ever wondered what it would look like if an elevator could play basketball? Shaw is the answer to the question. He is the inspiration for Modest Mouse’s Grammy Award-winning single “Float On.” He is the child of SlamBall. “Skywalker” is his middle name.
To watch Shaw dunk is to watch a rocket take off. Mixtapes were created for the sole purpose of documenting his flight patterns. The court is his launchpad — a trampoline would send him out of orbit. The laws of gravity barely apply to him. Returning to Earth is more of a choice.
He is a supervillain on a path of complete destruction. His dunks make the same sound effects you’ll find in any comic book — “Boom! Pow! Smash! Wham!” He wasn't that type of player when he first stepped on campus, though. Shaw said he saw himself as a “kind of nicer guy” before the season started. That had to change. He couldn’t be that person going up against guys bigger, stronger and wiser than the rookie. He had to develop an alter ego.
“So I started screaming every time I stepped on the court just to show, like, I'm a monster,” Shaw said.
It’s easy to forget he’s less than a year removed from high school. Shaw is the only freshman on scholarship on a team that features 12 players listed as juniors or seniors. He’s still experiencing everything for the first time. Senior forward Kobe Brown said that Shaw was so anxious to make his college debut that he already had his jersey on two and half hours before the team’s preseason exhibition game against Wash. U on Nov. 3.
He’s had games where he’s been one of the Tigers’ leading rebounders, nights he’s shown range from the 3-point line and moments he's looked like a cornerstone for the program’s future. Gates said there are three main areas of improvement for him to take the next step.
“Being in the right spot, that's the biggest challenge,” Gates said. “The other thing is strength. We know he's not the biggest guy, he's a guy that's 6(-foot-)8, 6(-foot-)9 but he's still under 200 pounds. So obviously those are things that happen developmentally that you hope to see faster. But you can't speed that process up and I don't ever want to speed weight-gaining up for guys. Naturally, it'll happen when his body says it'll happen.
“The last thing is being able to rebound. Right now, he's rebounding at one rebound every six and a half minutes and that's not acceptable for him. And I've talked to him about that.”
Missouri doesn’t need him to be its best player every night yet. For now, they just need him to keep hovering over the hardwood, soaring above everyone else on the floor and flushing the ball through the rim so hard that it requires an “SCTop10” hashtag. Those plays can turn the momentum of a game around.
For instance, during the Tigers’ matchup against South Carolina on Tuesday, Gamecocks senior forward Josh Gray threw down a dunk to give his team its biggest lead of the evening at 32-29 with five minutes remaining in the first half. Mizzou missed a pair of layups on the next trip, both rebounded by Shaw to keep the possession alive, then called a 30-second timeout.
Brown got the ball at the top of the key and lobbed it up to Shaw, who was cutting in from right wing. Shaw snatched the pass with his right hand and slammed it down. A minute and a half later, the freshman canned a 3-pointer to push the Tigers back in front, 34-32. Mizzou went on to win the game, 83-74.
“I'm excited about his future,” Gates said. “There's no doubt about it, Aidan Shaw is gonna go down as one of the all-time great players at Mizzou and I'm encouraged to see him work every day because he's in the weight room, he's in getting extra shots, his personality is infectious in terms of having fun. Being that lone freshman is sometimes a lonely place. Between he and (walk-on guard) Jackson Francois, those are the only freshmen in our program ... They're growing, so I'm excited about where he's at.”
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