MMBOW
Mr. Anderson's March began strongly, with a 24-point game in a 64-62 Spider win at Charlotte last Tuesday. The sophomore guard played all 40 minutes, making eight of his 13 shots including the game-winner. He also grabbed six rebounds -- doubling his season average, and six is always an impressive accomplishment for a guard who stands six-flat. But then the Duluth, Ga. native had the performance of his career four days later, when he put up 29 points against league-leading Xavier -- a team that had clinched its third straight regular-season championship earlier in the week. In a 80-75 win that served as a warning shot going into next week's tourney in Atlantic City, Mr. Anderson once again played the whole game, made half his shots (10-for-20), converted nine of his 10 free throws, grabbed four boards and nabbed a couple of steals as well. It was certainly a good time to post a career scoring high, and he put a cap on the highest one-week point total of his two-year collegiate stint. Consider this a season-long achievement award, too. Richmond's year was supposedly over before it began -- Dan Geriot was the team's leading scorer and rebounder during 2007-08 (14.3 ppg, 5.5 rpg), but he tore up his knee in a summer tourney last July and was lost for the season. Young Mr. Anderson, the 2008 A-14 Rookie of the Year, helped pick up the slack: he moved from 10.2 ppg up to a squad-leading 16.2 when his team needed more. He also became a much more efficient scorer, too, making 1.29 points per shot against 1.14 in his freshman year. The overall result? The Spiders achieved the same 9-7 conference record as they did a year ago, and have one more overall victory now (17) than in all of 2007-08. And no matter what happens next week, they'll re-add Geriot for 2009-10 for a possible run at the league title. Spider Pride is alive and well, thanks in large part to our Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
Mr. Hodzic's week began with a strong performance in a 10-point home win over eventual league No. 1 seed Jacksonville. The 6-9 product of Bosnia and Herzegovina hung 22 points on the Dolphins on 7-for-14 shooting, adding four rebounds and going a perfect 8-for-8 from the line. In the regular season finale against lowly North Florida, the sophomore Sarajevan didn't let up, putting up 21 on 8-for-15 shooting. He also chipped in seven rebounds as the Bisons finished the slate on a long win streak. Even though he led the A-Sun in field goal percentage in his first year, it's been what can only be described as a breakout year for Mr. Hodzic, who should find a place on one of the league's postseason teams. He's more than doubled his scoring output from his freshman year from 8.6 ppg to a team-leading 17.9, upped his rebounding from 4.2 to a team-best 7.6 rpg, and has registered seven double-doubles in 2008-09. He also makes his presence felt every minute he's on the floor: at 25.4 points per 40 minutes played, he's tied for 18th nationally in that category. At no time during this eight-game win streak has he shot worse than 50 percent, and he's converting 59.6 percent of his shots on the season. So while you're following along with the A-Sun tourney, don't discount that dangerous No. 4 seed that'll be the beneficiary of some serious home cooking (important, as the quality of catering at this event is always top-notch). You've been properly warned. And congratulations, Adnan, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week. Photo: Brandee Rees/Lipscomb Athletics
Mr. Hayward's week started out humbly enough, with a four-shot performance in Butler's loss at Wisconsin-Milwaukee; his four points in that game was a personal low so far. But he more than made up for it next time around. In a 12-point win in a nationally-televised BracketBuster game at Davidson, Number 20 in black and blue exploded for a career-high 27 on 6-for-12 shooting (4-of-7 from 3), badly outdueling Stephen Curry and sending the commentators scrambling for material on the young phenom. He added nine rebounds, two steals and a block, and made 11 of 12 free throw attempts. He was definitely Best Actor in a Leading Role over BracketBusters weekend. The Brownsburg, Ind. native is the most promising of Butler's talented freshman class, if only because he's already shown the ability to do a lot of different things. At 6-8 and 180 lbs., he can shoot from any angle (48.5 percent from the floor, 45.9 percent from 3), hit free throws (82 percent), run the baseline for two-point dunk shots, grab rebounds (he's the HL's fifth-leading board-getter at 6.5 rpg), get out in transition, and steal (1.6 spg) or block shots (1.0 bpg) in equal measure. After the game on Saturday, Davidson head coach Bob McKillop favorably compared the young star-to-be as a possible next coming of Mike Dunleavy. That guy's making some cash, no? And so might this guy someday, a future Bulldog Millionaire. Congratulations, Mr. Hayward, you're our Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
In his first year at Radford, Mr. Parakhouski has scored a team-leading 15.3 ppg, earned 13 double-doubles, and has climbed to 10th on the Division I rebound list with 10.9 per game. He also had quite a week as the Highlanders assumed full and absolute control of the league race. The 6-11, 260-lb. junior's week began with a 16-point, 18-rebound performance in a home OT win over Coastal Carolina last Monday, followed by a stat-stuffing road trip over the weekend. His 16 points and 14 boards helped the Highlanders overcome defending regular-season champs UNC Asheville, then he dropped 29 (on 9-for-11 shooting) on Charleston Southern last night. And unlike most big men we know, he did it all without getting into foul trouble. Only four infractions over the whole week, and as a first-year player on a historically underperforming team, it's not like he's getting superstar treatment. His is the story of a young man's strange, quixotic journey from Minsk to Montgomery county, a road that also includes a two-year stop at the College of Southern Idaho. He once grabbed 21 boards in 16 minutes there. He also played for Belarus' team in the Junior European Championships in 2007; the men's senior team from his home country hasn't made the Olympics in its decade-plus of independence; maybe he can help out with that someday and become a bigger star than Vitaly Scherbo. For now, congratulations, Artsiom, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
We didn't have to tip the scales, employ confirmation bias or use questionable methods to come to this decision. Mr. Hudson really did have the best week of any mid-major player last week. He started with a 30 point, 10 rebound double-double on sorta-national television last Thursday at Austin Peay in our G!O!T!N! -- he shot 8 for 25, but hit 11 of 12 free throws to eclipse his season scoring average and lead the Skyhawks to an overtime win over the league champs. But his best single-game performance of the year came on Saturday. Against a deflated Tennessee State squad playing its first game with an interim coach, the Memphis native exploded for 34 points on 13-for-27 shooting, hit four 3's and came within two assists of a triple-double with eight assists in a blowout 27-point win. The two-game swing came after a 12-day break that came about when a Jan. 28 game at Murray State was postponed due to weather, and of course, this all happened in the Skyhawks' snappy dark blue jerseys, pictured above. After losing its first two OVC games away from home in December, Martin's eight game win streak contains five road victories, and the team is now just a half-game behind Morehead State for first place at 9-3. Now, five of their last seven are at Skyhawk Arena, giving UTM a great chance to pull a top seed for the league tourney; it also gives what few home fans there are plenty of time to get one last glimpse of a future pro. (Our Bally contest of the week, which will be announced tomorrow, will also feature him -- so this is just part of the saturation bombing campaign.) This 64-point week drew him to within a single point of national scoring leader Stephen Curry, who's averaging 28.7 ppg to the Skyhawk star's 27.7. And while his assist-to-turnover ratio would be a lot better if he'd just stop slashing to the hole and scoring all those damn points, we're closely monitoring his 1.1:1 mark, which is just off last year's 1.2:1; that's what scouts have told us he needs to improve. But between now and NBA Pre-Draft Camp, he's got a lot of stats to put up and some potential NCAA glory to grab. Congratulations on a great week, Mr. Hudson, our MId-Majority Baller of the Week.
Not that it wasn't an obvious choice or anything, Mr. Toolson did only produce the highest point total in the NCAA's top flight so far this century. In a 123-121 win at Chicago State last Thursday night, the 6-4 senior converted 18 of his 31 field goal tries, including seven of 11 from 3, and added 20 free throws to score 63 points, which is the 10th most in a Division I game all-time. And he grabbed 12 rebounds as well. Sure, it was a quadruple-overtime game and all, but this was a study in pure endurance: he played all 60 minutes of the contest and earned every single one of those stats. Two nights later, as befitting the rigorous schedule of a D-I independent, UVU popped up on the left coast at Cal State Bakersfield. Proving he had more gas in the tank, Mr. Toolson scored 22 points on 7-for-12 shooting to lead his team, although the Wolverines lost 69-60. Put it all together, and that's an 85-point week. The Wolverines' star, who hails from Gilbert, Arizona, is money whenever he shoots the ball -- and somebody somewhere in the world is going to give him a contract when he's done with college. He's consistently made half his field goal attempts, but consider this: he's only missed 25 free throws during his entire career (429 of 454, includes D-II games as well). Perhaps the biggest shock in the 63-point game was that he missed one -- its was only the sixth of 18 games he hadn't gone perfect from the line. But we're all shooting for perfection in our chosen fields, and Mr. Toolson is closer than a lot of us are. He's also your Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
In a lot of ways, this week's effort is even more impressive than the week that made Mr. Woodside our fifth selection of the year and momentarily charmed the populace. It started out with a step out of league play, a 28-point night built on 8-for-12 shooting against future Great West member Utah Valley. He scored half the points from his signature game, but in much less than half the time -- it only took him 22 minutes to compile that statline. But on Saturday, the Albert Lea, MN native showed his endearing endurance, playing 44 minutes in an overtime battle on the road against Badlands foe South Dakota State. In a game where the Bison slammed the pedal down in OT to win by 10, Woodside shot 10-for-20 for 30 points, hit a pair of 3's, and made eight of his nine free throws. He's currently the nation's sixth-leading scorer. The Bison are tied for first in the BLC with Oral Roberts, but the G'Eagles' single loss was to, yep, North Dakota State (Woodside: 24 points). So it's safe to proclaim the existence of an emerging disorder sweeping its way across Hoops Nation: Bison Fever. You may recall that this is the team's first year of postseason eligibility, that they redshirted Woodside's entire class to prepare for this moment, and that they beat Marquette and Wisconsin during their long wait. Get on this, folks... this is a train you want to be on once it leaves the station in March, and you need to get geared up early. This is the kind of story we lovelovelove here at TMM, we're just sounding the alarm. Oh, and congratulations to Ben Woodside, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
Time will tell if Mr. Hudson will transcend the D-League level that Fazekas eventually topped out at, or if he'll get a cool nickname that precedes him. We do know that he's good at playing basketball, which he did twice in front of people last week. In the first game, an ESPNU date at Tennessee Tech, the 6-2 senior guard blasted the OVC opposition for 29 points (on 14-for-25 shooting), nabbed 10 rebounds, dished seven assists and stole five steals as his Skyhawks won by 11. Two days later, the UTM road trip continued at Jacksonville State, a team that put together a surprisingly solid non-conference record. Our multiple-MMBOW scored 25 in that one, hit four 3's, and cleaned the glass eight times -- four times on either end. Once again, the Skyhawks emerged victorious, this time by a much wider margin. So the Skyhawk star had what could be considered a prototypical MMBOW-worthy week: he led the team to two wins, on the road no less, and he stuffed the stat sheet twice. More importantly, however, he helped re-establish Tennessee-Martin as a scary postseason threat. As of this writing, this team sits at 5-3 fourth in the league, not having worked off three early losses in conference play, but there's no denying the momentum. All told, UTM has won nine of its last 10. I have never actually interviewed Mr. Hudson, something I hope to rectify later this season, but he apparently knows about this site. He's also, according to the now-classic story of Ben from Cincinnati, a great guy with a great mom. So if you're reading this, "Les," congratulations. You are, once again, the Baller of the Week.
Mr. Akognon's week consisted of two Big West road wins in which he played a starring role. On Thursday at Cal Poly, he played 37 minutes (he's the conference mpg leader at 34.4), shot 9-for-20, and registered 26 points -- including two key free throws in the final minute -- in the Titans' 86-82 win. Two days later in the Thunderdome, he led his team to another close win, a 62-58 victory over UC-Santa Barbara. The star guard scored 29, including 20 in the second half, as CSF head coach Bob Burton collected his 100th win. In that UCSB game, he shot 10-for-22, including 5 3's. For the week, Akognon made nine 3-pointers and hit all eight of his free throws. The "Petaluma Pistol" has been in this space before -- he was the second MMBOW of 2007-08. And after a summer during which he applied for early entry to the NBA Draft and alter dropped out, he announced his presence in the Big West champs' second game of the season with a 41-point explosion in Hawaii. He's kept up a scoring average that has him sixth in the nation at the moment, but some bad shooting nights coincided with CSF's nonconference struggles. The Titans lost their first two Big West tilts, but have rebounded to win those two roadies over the last week to even their record at 2-2. Will they surge to complete the repeat? We know of one player who's motivated to lead his team back to the NCAA's and impress a few scouts as well. That would be our Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
The Skyhawks lost five of their first seven games, taking wide losses at Tennessee and Southern California, and dropping its first two league decisions at Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky. It wasn't the 6-2 Memphis native's fault, he just wasn't getting much help. But the supporting cast has woken up, and Hudson has upped his game as well, resuming last year's pace of remarkable performances. Last Wednesday at Central Arkansas, he scored a stunning 41 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, a double-double that helped UTM to an 84-65 win on the road. Last night, as league play restarted in the Ohio Valley, he shot 10 for 19 from the floor and six of seven from the line for 28 points as Martin topped Murray State by four. The Skyhawks now enjoy a five game win streak heading into the heart of conference play -- with all cylinders firing again, the team looks poised for a run towards its first NCAA appearance. Additionally, the strong week helped Hudson jump out to second place in the national scoring race (25.9 ppg) behind Stephen Curry. It helps that he's one of the top 100 free throw shooters in the country, only missing seven of his 72 attempts so far. If he closes out his senior year strong, he'll be a factor in Draft talk again. NBA body? Um, yeah. Versatility? Dude's got a quadruple-double to his credit, son. How much money he makes for playing basketball, and where, is still to be determined. For now, he's our Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
Mr. Dominguez is a 5-6, 155 lb. senior guard for Portland State. It's been quite a Best Year Ever for him. He won both newcomer and player of the year in the Big Sky Conference back in March, led his team to its first NCAA tournament, spent a night in a Mexican jail, battled injury, then went through a snowstorm to engineer a win over the school formerly known as UMPFN. Last Monday night, the Salem, Ore. native shot 8-for-12 from the floor, including seven long-range hits in 10 attempts, to score more points against Gonzaga than any player has so far this season (25). Despite his height, he also chipped in six rebounds as PSU knocked off the Zags by a 77-70 count, a score that scrolled endlessly across the ESPN ticker for a full hour afterwards. It might have seemed like a post-holiday letdown off a historic victory, but Portland State traveled all the way to Texas Southern University in Houston for a Saturday tilt ahead of a Monday guarantee at Baylor. Though they let go of an early lead and had to break open a 55-55 tie with a minute to go with free throws, the Vikings escaped with an eight-point victory over the winless Tigers. In 28 minutes, Dominguez scored a team-high 15 points and had over half his team's 11 steals (six). He's definitely having as big a year as he did in 2007-08, and the circumstances make it all the more remarkable. In the Vikings' crosstown clash against Portland on Nov. 18, Dominguez took a chip fracture in his right (shooting hand) index finger while diving for a loose ball. He kept playing, struggling to three single-digit scoring performances before taking two games off. In his return, Portland State came within a point of beating Washington, as Dominguez shot 5-for-11 for 16 points. He's scoring 13.5 ppg, slightly off his 14.2 from his POY year, and has increased his 3-point shooting percentage from 43.3 to 45.1. The Vikings are 10-3 and look poised to run the Big Sky Conference again once league play restarts this weekend. Will Mr. Dominguez's 2009 be as eventful as his 2008? Yeah, probably. In the meantime: congratulations, Jeremiah, you're our Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
Mr. Feldeine, a 6-4 junior guard, plays for Quinnipiac -- a school more known for presidential polls than basketball. The Bobcats' leading scorer was the Northeast Conference player of the week last week for double-doubling (19 and 10) against Wagner, but we like his two more recent roadies against non-conference opponents better. On Wednesday in a 76-74 away win at Dartmouth, he shot 11-for-20 for 29 points, a performance that also included eight rebounds, six assists and two steals. The Q lost up at America East contender Vermont by five on Saturday, a much smaller margin than would be expected, and Feldeine was a big reason why. He scored 26 on 11-for-18 shooting, and stuffed the stat sheet with eight rebounds, four assists and three steals. Nobody else south of the Red Line had a 55-point week. Could Quinnipiac sneak in and make noise in the NEC? The Q, which now plays in a beautiful bifurcated arena named after a bank (we like to call it the Q-Pod), has only two winning seasons in its 10-year Division I history. But the Bobcats are off to a decent 6-4 start. Despite a very low conference RPI of 29, there's a lot of relative strength in the NEC this year, with defending champs Mount St. Mary's, Central Connecticut and Robert Morris fielding strong entries -- the Bobcats' road prowess (4-1) could vault them into that conversation. Feldeine, who with sophomore Justin Rutty makes up the best rebounding duo in the league, is putting up 18.8 ppg to go with his 7.3 boards. Which is a vast improvement from his sophomore year. Last year, he put up 8.3 ppg and 4.0 rpg on a team dominated by DeMario Anderson and his 21 points per ballgame, but Feldeine is picking up a lot of the production load Anderson left behind. He's more than doubled his scoring average and is grabbing nearly twice the rebounds, and has improved his percentages from the floor, arc and stripe. We notice, Quinnipiac. Congratulations, James, you're the MMBOW.
On Friday night in the opening round of the Drake Invitational (we can't bring ourselves to call it the Hy-Vee Classic), the traveling fans and a few Des Moines locals witnessed history. In the opposite half of the mini-bracket and the early game, Mr. Woodside scored 60 points in 51 minutes of a triple-overtime game against Stephen F. Austin. All the numbers were big -- the 112-111 final score, the 14 field goals by the 5-11 Albert Lea, Minnesota native, his 30-for-35 performance from the line. He also found the time to grab eight rebounds and eight assists. But that 60 points is what buzzed across the national wires. A full 22 of those points came in the last 8:51 of the second half. This was the highest single-game point total in Division I since 2000, when Arizona State's Eddie House scored 61 in double-overtime (warning: Pac-10 content). But that wasn't all! The next day, in the consolation game, Woodside went off for 31 against Georgia Southern in a 98-77 win for the Bison, shooting 8-for-15 from the floor and 11-for-12 from the line. He also tallied 10 assists to notch the little guy's double-double. All in all, a 91-point weekend is not bad at all. If anything, it gives Stephen Curry a new horizon to shoot for. If you think you've heard this name before, you probably have. Especially if you live in a town called Madison. Woodside's first major national performance came as a freshman on Jan. 21, 2006 when he scored 24 against Wisconsin and helped NDSU bring down the Badgers 62-55 in the school's first year of Division I reclassification. Now a senior, he has a career full of points (1,764 to date) and great 3-point shooting. He's averaging 40.9 percent from behind the arc, and he's one of those guys who doesn't mind the new distance. He's shot 51.4 percent (19-for-37) since the NCAA painted the double-rainbow on every floor. He's also been polishing his dime collection: his assist-to-turnover ratio has increased each year, and now he's sitting at a solid 2-to-1, with 7.6 assists per contest. And about the whole not leading your team to victory thing, let's put that in its proper perspective. This Ruthian round number came in a game that will not matter one iota on Selection Sunday. Let's face it, North Dakota State, as a member of the Badlands Conference, is not a candidate for an at-large bid and will sink or swim based on its league performance (and, thanks to having finished reclassification, NDSU is eligible for the postseason). Does it matter that this happened in a losing cause? In a month, nobody will remember that the Bison had lost, nobody will remember the SFA player's winning layup, just that 60. So congratulations, Ben Woodside, you are the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
Last year at this time, we prominently mentioned the Redhawks' 6-5 forward's general under-the-radarness. As a senior, that's not so much the case anymore. The Harper Woods, Mich. native leads Miami in scoring (18.3 ppg) and is No. 4 among Mid-American Conference players. He also paces the team in blocks (1.3), and has honed a 3-point stroke that is lethal from any point on the new reconfigured arc. He's gone from 36.3 percent from downtown in 2007-08 to a staggering 46.9 percent this year. About Mr. Bramos' stellar week: with a tough come-from-ahead loss against Xavier in the rear-view, the Redhawks continued a mini-Atlantic 14 tour by descending on Big Bro-Love Township for a Wednesday date with the Temple Owls. In a workmanlike 68-52 victory, Miami's top scorer shoveled in 26 points on 10-for-21 shooting, including six 3's. Three days later, in Miami's home opener against Northwestern State, Bramos made up for a slow 3-for-11 shooting start by scoring 23 after the break, including six rapid-fire long bombs to finish with eight -- a tie for third on the school's all time single-game performance chart. He ended the 94-66 win with 31 points, and the week with an even 50 percent shooting mark. There's something about this guy heating up about a month into the season. Last year he followed up his MMBOW week with eight more 20+ point performances and a strong finish, despite missing five games, including the Redhawks' season-ending CBI loss, to injury. If he can remain healthy all season, and keep up his hot shooting and increasingly effective physical play, that'll be bad news for the rest of the MAC. In the meantime, a couple of home contests against Horizon League squads Milwaukee and Valpo await. Congratulations, Mr. Bramos, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week. Most fans know him for "the Dagger" against Duke two seasons ago, but he's been making opponents say "dang" for the better part of three years. Over the past seven days, he put together one of the most impressive three-game stretches seen in Hoops Nation so far this season. Eric Maynor is our third Mid-Majority Baller of the Week for 2008-09.
And that's exactly what this is... he's looking to turn his senior year into a convincing pro resume. Check out these numbers: Maynor is seventh in the nation with a 24.5 ppg scoring average, and leads all Colonial Athletic Association players with a 5.7 assist average. In six games, he's shooting 53 percent from the floor, and 41 percent from 3. And don't forget the 4.0 boards per game; he's looking to average four per game three seasons in a row. Not bad for a point guard. The 6-2 North Carolina native took a month to think over his early-entry status after his 17.9 ppg junior season, but VCU fans were overjoyed that he decided to stay an extra season. The 2008-09 CAA preseason player of the year will spend the next four months padding his highlight reel, and work on the paint-penetration skills that could take him from second-rounder to instant millionaire (and hopefully cut down on those turnovers). It's been great these last few years watching him mature from a shaky shooter as a freshman into a full-grown NBA-ready stud, and we're fortunate that the college ride isn't over quite yet. Congratulations, Eric Maynor, you're the MMBOW. I have a real treat for you today. I want to introduce you to this special, special player I've discovered. His name's Curry, as in hot like. He's got a regular-looking first name -- Stephen -- but it's pronounced all weird, like STEFF-in. His dad played in the NBA. Nothing about this guy is regular, let me tell you. And his jump shot... creamy smooth like whipped peanut butter. You really should see this guy.
Mr. Curry, a 6-2 junior guard, currently leads the entire nation in scoring at 34.0 ppg, which may be the kind of number you're used to seeing on the NBA leading scorer table, with its extra eight minutes every game. But it's no real shock because he's also the nation's leading scorer (25.9 ppg last season), and it's been common knowledge that the sky has been his limit for some time now. Much of that world-leading average was gained during a 44-point outburst in a losing effort at Oklahoma on national television Tuesday night. That number represented both the highest one-game total in Division I so far, as well as a career high full of career highs. But that was just one highlight in a busy week. On Monday, he dropped 33 on James Madison, on 14-for-19 shooting. In a Friday night BracketBuster return game with Winthrop, a wide Wildcat win, the man shot 50 percent (8-for-16) for 30 points. Oh, and how's that conversion to the point guard slot going? Add up all the assists for the week and you get 25, good for 8.3 apg and the No. 3 slot on the national chart. He owns a 3.2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, and has also collected 4.5 steals per contest. All together now: Stephen Curry is good at basketball. We're not trying to keep him from being rich or anything, and this is totally a selfish request, but the petition for him to stay for a senior year starts now, and we'd like to apply the first signature. But that's still a long way off. In the meantime, congratulations to Mr. Curry, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
Mr. Reid, who was named as Big South POY today for the second consecutive season, becomes our first two-time winner of 2007-08. We had him as our 10th honoree back in mid-January. The Panthers were doing quite well back then, claiming a 62-61 Big South season-opening home win against the defending champions from Winthrop. But a lot's happened since. High Point lost three of its next five to disappear from the race while WU and UNC Asheville fought it out for the conference lead. A return loss at Winthrop in early February began a tailspin that threatened to send the Panthers into low-seed oblivion: four losses in five games. That's when the 6-5 senior, who's averaged 24.2 ppg and 11.1 rpg this season, took the team on his shoulders. He turned in two stellar performances last week that turned HPU's fortunes around, and helped the team rebound to claim the No. 3 seed in this week's tourney. Last Wednesday against Radford, he scored 34 points on 12-for-21 shooting, including four 3's to tie a season high, and the Panthers came away with a 77-54 win. But in the regular-season finale at the Virginia Military Institute -- a 99-88 victory -- "AZ" nearly contributed as many points as Arizona has delegates to this summer's conventions. High Point sealed the No. 3 seed thanks to a 42 point, 14 rebound effort from Mr. Reid. It was, efficiency-wise, his best performance of the year, as he shot 17-for-27 from the floor, shot 5-for-7 from the line, and played every single minute. Thanks to Reid's huge week, the Panthers ended the season 8-6 and will host a tourney game on Tuesday against No. 6 Coastal Carolina, instead of having to pack up and bus somewhere. Congratulations, Mr. MMBOW, and good luck in the postseason.
The 6-5 sophomore's week (for MMBOW reporting purposes) began on Wednesday against Hartford. In a 12-point home win, Mr. Blakely scored 30 points and grabbed 20 rebounds, the 11th 20-20 performance anywhere in D-I so far and just the eighth different player to achieve that plateau (former MMBOW Jason Thompson's done it three times, Michael Beasley twice). Then, Marqus turned in a great road BracketBuster game of his own, albeit a non-televised one. He barely missed becoming the first player this year to reach 20-20 in consecutive games, scoring 19 points and 19 rebounds. But the 84-73 win was a second consecutive victory for the Catamounts, who aren't dead yet in the America East race at 8-6, in third place behind UMBC and Hartford. And, incidentally, the UNCW performance was the Metuchen, N.J. native's 10th straight double-double, and 14th of the year. Marqus is the fifth-leading rebounder in Division I at 11.1 rpg, and he's moving up the national scoring charts with 19.8 ppg (42nd). He's also been the America East player of the week twice this season. Hopefully this will all help fans realize that he's done more than deliver last season's mid-major "two-point dunk shot" of the year, that flying slam in the America East title game which left an imprint of Mr. Blakely's crotch on the face of Albany's . We've linked to that video so many times that we're going to refrain from doing so from here on out. OK, alright, let's watch it again. That never gets old. Congratulations, Marqus, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week. (And we love the new mohawk.)
Last Thursday, Dansby helped lead Belmont to its sixth straight win to take control of the league race. At East Tennessee State, the team that the Bruins beat to earn the 2007 autobid, Dansby shot 12-for-15 for 28 points, and added eight rebounds in a 87-75 victory. Two days later, the team completed a road sweep by winning at USC Upstate by 10. Dansby was the Bruins' most efficient and productive player on that day, scoring 16 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. For his efforts, he was offered the Atlantic Sun's weekly honor. Shane, a native of Pegram, Tenn. and a former player at Murray State, has made the most of his opportunities as an Bruin upperclassman. He's the team's second-leading scorer with 14.3 ppg, and leads Belmont in boards with 6.1 per contest. Last week's A-Sun Player of the Week nod was his second of the season, and Belmont sports information director Greg Sage notes that Dansby's saved his best performances for the league's best. Against A-Sun teams with winning records, he's averaged 18.8 ppg, 7.5 rpg and has shot 58.4 percent from the floor (including 45.5 percent from 3). If Belmont is to return to the Big Dance for a third straight year, our current Mid-Majority Baller of the Week will likely be a big part of the drive.
Townsend missed only four of his 19 shots from the floor last week during Northridge's NoCal swing, which is pretty good. OK, it's awesome. In 38 minutes of play in a 78-73 overtime loss at Pacific last Thursday, the Phoenix native hit 5-of-7 shots for 12 points. But up the road at Davis on Saturday, Townsend brought a bitter, sour taste to the Aggie Pack's "Candy Madness" by hitting 9-of-11 shots for a game- and career-high 21 in the Matadors' 77-57 pullaway win. And all that's impressive enough, but we haven't even got to the rebounds yet. In the Pacific game, he nabbed 13 boards. But on Saturday at UCD, he muscled and tussled his way to 22 caroms, two short of the school's 37-year-old school record and tied for the fourth-higest total of anyone, anywhere in Division I this 2007-08 season. The performance was dubbed as one of the finest in school history and Tremaine was, quite understandably, the Big West Conference player of the week. Mr. Townsend is having a fantastic year in his first campaign at Northridge, after transferring in from Saddleback Junior College in Arizona last summer. He's an inside-outside threat who averages 10.5 ppg, and is often the fourth option in a deep Matador rotation. Tremaine leads the team with 9.2 rpg, shoots 55.6 percent and has earned seven double-doubles on the season, including the two from the weekend that was. He claims that he once scored a basket for the other team in a game, but that's not happening lately -- he's helping lead the Matadors to what could be a dream season. Congratulations, Tremaine, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week. |
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63
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 |
109 |  |
26,514 |  |
season over |  |
119/887 (13.4%) |
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With our final weekly award of the season, we celebrate the work of a young Spider who used a two-game stretch to strike a little bit of arachnophobia into the hearts of Atlantic 14 opponents heading into the league's elimination event. Kevin Anderson of Richmond is our seventeenth, and final, Mid-Majority Baller of the Week for the 2008-09 season.
Our first conference tourney will be the Atlantic Sun event in Nashville, a league we took you 
Slumdog Millionaire (a film we saw in Indianapolis hours after penning 
If you've been watching the Big South standings (and if you haven't, please write us a 2,000-word essay why not), you may be wondering what this "Radford" is, why it's won 13 of 15 league games, and how you can get some for yourself. The Highlanders are on a seven-game streak and now lead the BSC by two games, and are a single victory away from clinching its best Big South season ever. Here's a big Belarusian reason why: Artsiom Parakhouski is our fourteenth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week for the 2008-09 season.
Sure, we have our favorites. There are players who we enjoy watching endlessly, the mid-major stars who have stood in this space for the past five years and have gone on to great and lucrative levels. The next one in that class could be the 6-2 senior guard from a little school in the Tennessee backlands who has received three of these mentions this season, who's lifted his team from obscurity to strong contention for a 2009 NCAA Tournament spot. Lester Hudson is our 
The picture on the left does not depict the hot club dance move or the new way the kids these days are expressing their excitement, it's just a snapshot of the most pure and perfect shooting mechanics in Division I right now. (And as you can see in the background, it's making the girly-girls go craz-ay!) Ryan Toolson of Utah Valley University is our twelfth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week of the 2008-09 season.
There was that 51-minute, 
There's certainly precedent for being chosen multiple times in a season... back when we did this five times a week (hoo boy, Tuesdays were tough), 
Before the 2007-08 season, Josh Akognon transferred from Washington State to Cal State Fullerton with two years of eligibility remaining -- his point production doubled, and he set school single-season records for 3-point field goals and free throw percentage. That's an indication that maybe he wasn't in the right place before. And in his senior season, he's putting up some more big numbers. The Titans guard is our ninth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week for the 2008-09 season.
He was a breakout superstar from 2007-08 who came out of nowhere to lead a perennial OVC flounder to a salmon-jump in the standings. He was a juco transfer who 
The holidays wiped out half the week's schedule (in a good way, of course), but some players made the most of the four-day week. And just to be clear, a shortened week does not mean that the award is less than 100 percent full strength, the same way that some fans tried to undercut the importance of the San Antonio Spurs' strike-struck 1999 NBA title. Not in the least. Jeremiah Dominguez is our seventh Mid-Majority Baller of the Week of the 2008-09 season, and he definitely put in enough work to make up for the break.
One of the great things about TMM -- okay, maybe it's the only good thing about any of this -- is that we get to introduce you to players those other websites don't have time for. Like this 6-4 NYC product who turned in two of the most efficient performances in mid-majordom last week, work that went generally unnoticed outside the New Haven metro area. Ladies and gentlemen, meet James Feldeine, our sixth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
Usually, this feature is reserved for players at our level who a.) have great performances in games that matter and b.) win. But sometimes we have to make an exception, or one-and-a-half. Ben Woodside of North Dakota State is our fifth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week for the 2008-09 season.
The Mid-Majority tries to keep it fresh, mix it up, to stay frisky and funky in a world full of stale coach-speak and paint-by-numbers analysis. But this time, it's impossible. For one of the very few times in this site's obscure history, we are recycling a subject line letter-for-letter. For the 
Mr. Maynor spent his weekend in the premier vacation destination of Cancun, Mexico, but he was there to work. On what no less of a writer than 
Okay, this isn't working. No. 30 in red stopped being our little secret years ago, and our common MMBOW format of giving a few paragraphs of personal introduction isn't going to fly. But one thing is for certain -- nobody in mid-majordom had a better week, and so Stephen Curry of Davidson is our second Mid-Majority Baller of the Week of the 2008-09 season.
The really good players are the ones who can lift their teams up when it counts, who deliver in the clutch, who take it upon themselves to lift their team out of a funk. And the very funky-haired Arizona Reid of High Point is our seventeenth Mid-Majority Baller Of The Week.
There were a lot of great performances over BracketBuster weekend -- 
The two-time Atlantic Sun champion Belmont Bruins were a bit undersold last summer, as they lost two 6-10 seniors who earned the lion's share of the team's rebounds last season. The Bruins have suffered a bit on the boards, but they're getting a lot of them from a player that last year would have seemed an unlikely source, and have kept on winning. Shane Dansby, a 6-4 junior, is our fifteenth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
There's no doubt that Cal State Northridge, a school with just two winning seasons since joining the Big West in 2001, has gone from pity-party to postseason candidate in short order. At 16-6 overall and 8-2 in the conference, the first-place Matadors are on track for their first Big West men's basketball championship and CSN's first NCAA appearance since a Big Sky autobid in 2001. For that, you can credit coach Bobby Braswell for successfully mixing in productive new players, and one of them we will honor here today. Tremaine Townsend is our fourteenth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
