Meet Team Kaloy: Bohol's viral dunkers

Remember Vince Carter's "Dunk of Death" in the 2000 Sydney Olympics?

It's hard to recreate for sure, but one group of hoopers from Bohol attempted to do it, and their video channel has gained plenty of traction since for their highlight dunks.

Team Kaloy, a group of friends from Bohol, have been making waves online for their low-rim dunk videos.

The team, composed of Jay Carlo Davalan Damolo, Francis Neri Ugay, John Paul Ugay, Gabriel Rendzo Bacarro, James Walter Felisilda, Raymond Bayotlang, said they started making videos just to kill the time during the pandemic lockdowns.

"Nung nagka-pandemic po, wala po kasing ibang makalaro kaya naisipan kong mag-dunk na lang kaya ako. Tapos, di ko akalain na magagawa ko 'yung ibang dunks kagaya ng pro dunker sa ibang bansa na napapanood ko sa Instagram," the 5-foot-6 Damolo said in an interview with GMA News Online.

(At the start of the pandemic, I had no one to play with so I decided to do dunk videos. I did not expect to be able to do those dunks by pro dunkers from other countries which I saw on Instagram.)

Damolo said he just tried to learn the moves by watching YouTube videos.

"Nagyo-YouTube lang po at naghahanap ng mga technique na ina-upload ng mga pro dunker tapos ginagaya ko lang 'yung mga ginagawa nila. Nagagawa ko naman," he added.

(I just learned from YouTube and looked for techniques uploaded by pro dunkers, then I imitated what they do. I did it.)

Taking Damolo's lead, his friends soon joined in on the fun.

"Nung una po kasi, si Kaloy lang po nagpopost ng mga dunk niya sa TikTok tapos naglalaro-laro lang po kami kasi sa ginawang court nila," recalled Bacarro.

"Naisipan po namin na gawin 'yung dunk contest [act] ni Vince Carter, tapos ginawa na rin namin yung 'Dunk of Death' ni Vince Carter sa Olympics. 'Yun na unang nag-boom."

(At first, it was just Kaloy posting his dunk videos on TikTok, and we were just playing in their court. We thought of recreating Vince Carter's act in the dunk contest, then his 'Dunk of Death' in the Olympics.)

The Vince Carter-inspired video, as of writing, has at least 800,000 views on their YouTube channel -- a big hit for something they started out of fun.

"Sobrang saya po namin kasi pumatok 'yung video namin lalo na sa ibang bansa. Nakakagulat din po kasi di namin in-expect na magva-viral talaga siya," said Bayotlang.

(We are very happy since it went viral even in other countries. We were surprised and we did not expect it.)

With the online world now recognizing them, Team Kaloy said they plan to do more content and collaborate with other content creators.

"Sana marami pa ring subscriber at maka-collab ang mga sikat na vlogger kagaya nina Mav's Phenomenal," Francis Ugay said.

(We hope there will be more subscribers and we could collaborate with other vloggers such as Mav's Phenomenal.)

—JMB, GMA News