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An Appreciation: Jerian Grant's Dunk of the Year Candidate

In Notre Dame's first game of 2015, the Irish's senior guard climbed the stairway to heaven for a jam that exploded the internet.

By CW
Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

Notre Dame improved to 2-0 in ACC play with an ugly but effective double overtime win over Georgia Tech (read about it all here), but the headline of the game was Jerian Grant's second half dunk. I'm assuming everyone has seen it, but let's take a few looks of what might end up being the best dunk of a year that's less than 96 hours old. First, the video, which includes Jack Nolan trying to make sense of what's happening in the moment:

The Vine, which will be over 4 million loops by the time you read this:

The GIF:

The most enjoyable part of the aftermath was watching the appreciation of Grant's work spread across parts of the internet that never mention Irish basketball as they tried to figure out the best comparison to make.

"SportsCenter" was impressed, and later (obviously) had the dunk as its top play:

Jerian (obviously) trended:

His draft stock went up, I guess?

Praise was given to the new man running the show at the Vatican:

There was the belief that Jerian had potentially discovered human flight:

Investigations took place into how the hell he got so damn high:

Grant himself was a little confused about what to do, like when you jump really high in a dream and realize you don't have a safe way to get down:

It was an incredibly fun afternoon of much-deserved Jerian Grant love, but it raises two questions. The first: What do we call the dunk? Personally, I'm going with "The Stairway to Heaven," because of the Pope reference Ziller made and the fact it looked like Grant was using some invisible pathway to climb higher and higher. I also really like "Flight Over The Bumblebees," but sticking with Stairway.

Second issue: Was Jerian's dunk the best from Notre Dame this season, or do you side with Demetrius Jackson going over top of a man a foot taller than him?

The poll is below. Vote there on your favorite dunk, and please give suggestions to what we should name Grant's dunk in the comments.

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