UGA's Travis Leslie: a ‘wow' player

ATHENS -- Travis Leslie's teammates on the Georgia basketball team have taken good-natured note of his increasing celebrity.

"They call me ‘Top 10,' " Leslie, a sophomore from Decatur, said sheepishly.

That's a reference to ESPN SportsCenter's "Top 10″ plays-of-the-day feature, on which Leslie's dunks have had a recurring role recently.

For a player on a team with a 2-6 league record -- a player who started only four games last season -- Leslie surely is attracting a lot of attention.

"In the 15 years I've been doing this," SEC broadcaster Dave Neal said, "I can't think of a player as exciting around the basket as Travis Leslie has been this year. He's a ‘wow' player."

Although his game has progressed in many facets -- both Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl and Arkansas coach John Pelphrey call him the SEC's most improved player -- Leslie's celebrity has come from his high-flying dunks.

The 6-foot-4 Leslie's powerful one-handed slam over Kentucky's 6-foot-11 Demarcus Cousins in Rupp Arena on Jan. 9 remains his most famous dunk, viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube. But there have been many other highlight-reel plays -- enough that on a couple of occasions this season Leslie had two plays on ESPN's Top 10 the same day.

"People will remember and revisit the Kentucky dunk because it was Kentucky," Neal said, "but he had a follow-up dunk at South Carolina where it looked like he jumped out of the rafters. And his open-court steal [and breakaway double-clutch reverse slam] against Tennessee was Jordan-esque."

You'll notice that people tend to get excited when talking about Leslie, a wing player who is averaging 16.6 points and 8.1 rebounds in Georgia's SEC games.

"He's an athletic freak ... a guy that is capable athletically of just about anything," South Carolina coach Darrin Horn said.

"He's another human highlight film," said Georgia athletics director Damon Evans, invoking the nickname of former UGA great and Basketball Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins.

Georgia's basketball program, trying to build both a team and a fan base, welcomes the attention that Leslie is drawing.

"I think it's awesome," said Mark Fox, the Bulldogs' coach. "He's a very gifted young kid, but he also has worked very hard. I think that exposure is great for Travis, for Georgia, for the future of our program."

Leslie has handled the attention generally well, said Fox, who quickly added there's a fail-safe method for ensuring that Leslie doesn't get too impressed with himself.

"One of the advantages of coaching at Georgia," Fox said, "is that when someone thinks he's a great dunker, we pop in a tape of Dominique."

Leslie is aware of the ESPN and YouTube attention -- "I can't help but see it," he said with a smile -- but he wants to be known for more than highlights. He wants to be the complete player his coach says he can become.

The AJC's Class AAAA Player of the Year as a senior at Columbia High in 2008, Leslie occasionally showed flashes of his immense athleticism as a UGA freshman last season. But he displayed no mid-range game, was prone to turnovers, averaged just 6.3 points per game and sat out the final five games of the season because of academic problems.

"It was hard at the time," he said of having his season shut down early, "but it helped me. It was a good thing."

When Fox was hired after the season, Leslie made a quick impression.

"When we came in, I felt he would be someone who athletically, obviously, could go toe-to-toe with just about anybody," Fox said. "And then when we got a chance to meet him -- he's such a sweet kid -- and realized that he would do what we asked him to do, we felt he could ultimately become an all-league level player. And I think he is making progress toward doing that.

"He's becoming a true perimeter player rather than just an athlete who plays at the rim. ... He's a guy who at practice every day is really buying in to what we are doing and is finding a lot of success because of it. I think he will continue to improve. He can be much, much better."

Fox has challenged Leslie to "be a basketball player who's a great athlete as opposed to a great athlete who plays basketball."

Said Leslie: "I know what he means by that. There are a lot of things I'm going to be working on over the summer."

He has started each of Georgia's 20 games this season, joining Trey Thompkins as the primary weapons in Fox's offensive system. Leslie is averaging 14.3 points and 6.5 rebounds per game overall, but his higher averages in SEC play reflect his continuing strides. In a victory over Tennessee, he came within one rebound and three assists of the first triple-double in UGA hoops history.

While the bulk of his offense still comes within 10 feet of the basket, he is getting increasingly confident in his jump shot and hopes to be a legitimate 3-point threat next season.

Meanwhile, the TV cameras zoom in on his high-flying, rim-jarring dunks.

"His hang time is mind-boggling," said Neal, who has called the play-by-play on four Georgia telecasts this season, including last Saturday's victory over Vanderbilt on Fox Sports Net.