Meet the dynamic Farmington basketball star whose dunks are going viral

FARMINGTON — Keauntry Barnes and Logan Morse were engaged in some friendly banter.

The Farmington teammates were debating whether Morse had thrown a good alley-oop to Barnes. During a second-quarter breakaway in Tuesday’s win over Havana, Morse was just past halfcourt, saw his junior teammate streaking to the hoop and lobbed it up for Barnes’ rim-rocking, right-handed dunk.

“I say, no,” Morse said with a laugh when asked if it was a decent toss.

Added Barnes, smiling, “There’s been some worse passes. … He knows he could trust me to go up there and get it if he throws it up there. Good work on his part.”

Emphatic dunks like that from the 6-foot-6 forward may be something new for Peoria-area basketball fans (a Twitter video of the play has over 4,500 views), but the Farmington faithful have become accustomed to the high-flying show. The Macomb-Western Holiday Tournament crowd saw the duo hook up for another highlight reel alley-oop on the tournament’s final day.

When it’s a 2-on-1 situation with him and the senior guard, Barnes says he knows the ball will be coming his way.

“When we just make eye contact,” Morse said. “I know just to throw it.”

The latest Farmington dunker

According to Barnes, he’s just the latest in a long line of Farmington dunkers with Corbin Rutledge last season and Ty Anderson before that. However, Marty Lozier has been around Farmers basketball for the last 15 years and thinks Barnes is one of a kind, calling him "next level"

He’s even had to go as far as getting some help on drawing up some new sets.

“I didn’t have a lot of alley-oop plays designed up,” the second-year coach said. “Now the problem is I have to go on YouTube and figure out new ones.

“Keauntry probably ought to be taking (Logan) to Buffalo Wild Wings every week for all the dunks.”

Barnes prioritized his offseason, getting up shots early in the morning, living in the weight room and developing his all-around game. He also linked up with former Manual assistant coach David Williams and started training at the Hanna City Park District gym.

All that hard work is beginning to pay off.

“That’s why I’m so explosive,” Barnes said, “because I worked over the summer. It just progressed over time.”

That improvement isn’t lost on Morse either. He’s seen Barnes go from hanging around the perimeter as a sophomore to an assertive upperclassman. Both defense and rebounding by Barnes have also shown vast progression.

“He can do so much,” Morse said. “The confidence he has right now is through the roof. I think he’s going to be a very good player.”

Farmington and the future

As a team, Farmington comes off a pretty successful 2022 campaign. The Farmers went 25-8, won a regional for the first time in 15 years and made a run to the Class 2A sweet sixteen.

Farmington, which is 12-4 heading into Tuesday’s road game against Bushnell-Prairie City, continues to get better daily, starting the season by winning the Fulton County Tournament and already avenging an earlier season loss to Macomb.

“We just have that chemistry,” Barnes said.

College coaches — mostly NAIA and Division III schools — are starting to sniff around Barnes, Lozier says. His hopes are that his budding star stays steadfast in becoming a complete hooper.

Dunking, though, will forever remain a huge part of Barnes’ repertoire.

“It’s one of those things,” he said, “that you really don’t even realize it until you actually go out and do it in a game, you’re getting up there. It’s just one of things that I kind of look at as kind of normal.”

Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: IHSA basketball: Farmington star Keauntry Barnes dunks go viral