This is episode 63 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, recorded in person, because I’ve been staying out here for a week dunking with the guest. I’m Dylan Haugen, and Bishop Ukata is the most underrated dunker in the world: a 6’3” college basketball player who has quietly hit every Black Band dunk, owns one of the most plant-versatile games I’ve ever seen, and whom most of you have never heard of, which is exactly the problem this episode exists to fix. Go follow him now (he’s “takeoff.cinco” on Instagram); then come back for the story.
Dunking first, basketball second
Bishop’s origin inverts the usual order: he got into basketball through dunking, not the other way around. At 12 or 13 he was watching Connor Barth, Jordan Southerland, and Guy Oliver, pure dunk content, before he’d ever played organized ball, which didn’t start until ninth grade. The absurd footnote: his first dunk came at 13 years old, at 5’9”, a two-hander off the dribble, after barely trying, and then he didn’t dunk again for ages. Some people are simply built different, and then they also do the work, which is where this story actually gets good.
The work started during COVID, at the most charming training facility this podcast has ever featured: a low rim in his grandma’s backyard, planted in dirt, where he jumped every day through the worst patellar tendinitis of his life. Then the junior-year growth spurt hit, 5’9”-ish to 6’2.5”-6’3”, and the dirt-court skill bank suddenly had a vertical attached: Eastbays, behind-the-backs, the whole arsenal arriving at once.
The plant freak
The thing that makes Bishop unique even among elite dunkers: total plant versatility, in the weirdest configuration possible. He jumps highest left-right but does his dunks right-left, height-checks one way and performs the other, and has a real one-foot bag on top (his first Windmill ever, on video, was a cuff Windmill off one foot after basketball practice sophomore year). The history explains it: naturally a one-foot jumper, he learned left-right by studying Isaiah and growing alongside a left-right cousin, then added right-left this January, and it’s already his trick-dunk plant. His reasoning is a basketball player’s: driving to the rim you can’t choose your plant, so you’d better own all of them. Most dunkers specialize; Bishop speaks every dialect.
College, knee pain, and the return to the roots
His basketball path has been the hard version throughout: starting from zero at a hyper-competitive high school meant making middle-schooler mistakes on a varsity stage. Two years at Erskine College in South Carolina (redshirting the first) on knees that screamed the entire time, dunking off pure adrenaline, followed by a transfer to Patrick Henry Community College in search of the competitive, strictly scheduled environment his high school had wired him for. The dunking renaissance came at the end of his sophomore year, when managing the knee pain forced rest, and rest plus dedicated dunk days reconnected him with the thing that got him into basketball in the first place. Bonus, in his own assessment: dunking improved his ball control and handle, so the detour pays back into the sport.
From bodyweight plateau to a 44-inch vertical
Bishop’s training history was all bodyweight and plyos until recently, which carried him to a plateau around a 40-inch vertical. Then he joined Jump Master X (the post-merger program I train under), started actual lifting for the first time, and the “baby gains” have him at 44, possibly 45; we’re testing tomorrow. Current squat max around 350-360, no cleans ever (a wrist injury prevents the catch, so hex bar work substitutes), and almost no tested maxes because he just runs the program. The translation: one of the most naturally gifted jumpers in the community is in literally his first year of structured strength training. The ceiling discussion is over before it starts.
The Black Band run (0.1 inches of heartbreak)
The resume that justifies the episode title: Bishop has hit every Black Band dunk: Underboth (off the dribble, second try, which is preposterous), behind-the-back, 360 behind-the-back, J Rich, Scorpion, Eastbay off the backboard, 360 Eastbay, the Win off one foot, Eastbays and Windmills off both plants. Last weekend he ran the full Black Band attempt and completed every dunk in under four attempts each (the lone holdout was the Underboth, only because he insisted on trying it off the lob before going back to his off-dribble money version). The rim measured 0.1 inches short of the required height. One tenth of an inch. He’s completed the full band twice before on 9’11”, and in a couple of days we’re going to his college gym to do it again on a rim we’ve confirmed is tall enough. (Welcome, also, to rim-measuring culture: Bishop, like every basketball player, assumed all rims were 10 feet until this week with me. Episode 11 energy. Another convert.)
His list for this weekend, read off his phone: Black Band, off-the-backboard 360 between-the-legs, off-the-backboard Underboth, 540, behind-the-back two-hand reverse, Eastbay Reverse, 360 Eastbay two-hands, J Rich Reverse, 360 Underboth, Lost and Found, Hide-and-Seek. Long term: jumping over a person off one foot, the Hide-and-Seek and Lost-and-Found family, and, once elbows feel normal, an Underboth Elbow, a dunk that does not exist yet. Half of this list, frankly, isn’t long-term at all; it’s this weekend with good sleep.
What’s next
Bishop’s goals beyond the dunks: his first contest (he’s ready now and half-knows it; the missing pieces are consistency, confidence, and cue work, all reps problems), the Dunk Camp contest next year, continuing the basketball climb at Patrick Henry, and, as we both said simultaneously on the recording: Next Chapter should hit him up. The dunk community has a habit of discovering people two years after they got good; consider this episode your early notification. He’s on every platform now (Linktree in his bio), and the sessions from this week, including the Black Band attempt, are going up across both our channels.
Most underrated in the world. Watch the footage and argue with me. Next episode is Ethan Pimstone, the 48-inch jumper who came out of nowhere. See you in the next one.