MMBOW #16: Marqus Blakely, Vermont

There were a lot of great performances over BracketBuster weekend -- Alex Franklin's monster 30-and-18 for Siena in a blowout at Boise State, Kent State Golden Flash Al Fisher's 28 points in a big win at Saint Mary's, Josh Young's 25 points and clutch 8-for-8 free throwing for Drake in their national statement-maker at Butler. But we don't want to let a gigantic week go unnoticed. Marqus Blakely of Vermont is our sixteenth Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.

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.)

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