Briefly, on Central Michigan's 66-60 win over EMU: first off, hooray, it was on TV! As much of an undercard that it was to Miami-Kent State, we did see some maturation on the part of Trey Zeigler, which is basically what the whole conference has been waiting for.
T'wasn't just the 24 points on 14 shots, although the quantity and quality helps. But with the ball in hand in the final minute, EMU was one defensive stop away from a potential tying- or go-ahead shot. Zeigler came up four dagger-like points on back-to-back possessions — one a self-made drive to the basket, and one a fastbreak one-on-one layup. But they were both offensive, agressive moves. And his Freshman of the Year candidacy oughta take a bump, but he has a ways to go.
Now, the EMU-CMU match was ferseriously to determine ninth place, so don't think this means much in the grand scheme. ALTHOUGH: if you put into the postulate that Zeigler and Jalin Thomas are going to "get theirs," then the next person who needs production is Andre Coimbra. Hopefully somewhere in that Sideshow Bob coif there lies an instruction book on improving a post-up game. He had an exciting and-one dunk, but five points and three turnovers is no way to go through the MAC West. Although several big men are.
The exception is usually Brandon Bowdry, but even he had an off-night: 23 minutes, 13 points, and he fouled out. Darrell Lampley had a decent shooting night, but they don't have the perimeter shooting to overcome that which does not occur in the paint.
Finally, I'm hearing that a couple of the plays from this game made SportsCenter's Top 10. The CMU official video highlight reel has been buffering like a hellbeast for me, but I wonder which ones were used — there are about four worthy candidates.