Wikipedia said:

Joe Fortenberry, playing for the McPherson Globe Refiners, dunked the ball in 1936 in Madison Square Garden. The feat was immortalized by Arthur Daley, Pulitzer Prize winning sports writer for The New York Times in an article in March 1936. He wrote that Joe Fortenberry and his teammate, Willard Schmidt, instead of shooting up for a layup, leaped up and "pitch[ed] the ball downward into the hoop, much like a cafeteria customer dunking a roll in coffee".

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Andy Wittry said:

In 1944, college basketball saw its first-ever dunk, when Oklahoma A&M's Bob "Foothills" Kurland dunked by accident. Yes, you read that correctly.

Kurland, one of the first 7-foot centers, is credited with the first dunk in college basketball history when his Oklahoma A&M Aggies, which has since been renamed to Oklahoma State, played Temple.

"The ball happened to be under the basket. I got it up and stuffed it in. That started it, I guess,” the late Kurland told the Orlando Sentinel in 2012. "It was an unintentional accident. It wasn't planned, just a spontaneous play in Philadelphia.

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Jon Scott said:

Kentucky would make some rallies as the game progressed but the strong inside play of David Lattin and the consistent ball-handling and solid free-throw shooting of the Western guards ensured the victory.

"We had no idea what we were getting into," [Pat] Riley said. "In those days, players didn't dunk. I hadn't seen anyone dunk. Guys barely jumped high enough to stick a dollar bill under their shoes. But these guys came out, and after they had dunked on me about three times, I knew they had a lot more to accomplish than we did." - by Jere Longman, Philadelphia Inquirer, "Forget the Glitter, Riley is a Coach of Substance," June 8, 1987.

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Jon Scott said:

I haven't really discussed this in detail on this page but the topic of Rupp's view on dunking is complicated. It is true that he was in favor of the ban on dunking at the time it was announced in 1967, although it's not clear that he lobbied for the rule change and he was not a member of the rules committee at the time the rule was passed. One thing people today don't seem to recognize is that at the time with exposed hooks for the basketball net, dunking was a potentially dangerous maneuver and the threat of seriously hurting your hand or even losing a finger was real. In addition, if the goal was damaged it often led to game postponements as most places didn't have backup goals readily available.

While Rupp generally was against the dunk through much of his career. Lou Tsioropoulos noted that Rupp allowed the players to dunk in practice but not in games. Despite this, his players did indeed dunk from time to time in the 1950's and 1960's at least, including a memorable break-away dunk by Bill Spivey in a game vs. Kansas and rival big man Clyde Lovellette. Marion Cluggish, 6-8 center who played for Rupp in the late 30's to early 40's, was known to dunk in pregame warmups at Rupp's request in order to intimidate opponents. In an interview after his retirement, Rupp was quoted as saying about the dunk: "I really think it should be a part of basketball," said Rupp. "I was violently opposed to it, but after thinking about it for two or three years, I think it has a spot in basketball." (Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, May 1, 1976)

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Wikipedia said:

Kentucky played a much-anticipated game versus Kansas on December 16, 1950, with Spivey matched up against Jayhawks center Clyde Lovellette. The Wildcats won by 29 points as Spivey outplayed Lovellette, in what he later called the best performance of his college career. After one steal, he drove to the Kansas basket and did a slam dunk; this was rare for Kentucky basketball at the time, as Rupp instructed players not to dunk during games.

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