NCAA Basketball: Lipscomb and Grant Riller top mid-major performers of the week
By Logan Butts
Week three of the NCAA Basketball season is complete. Who had the best mid-major performances of the week?
Best Performance, Individual – Grant Riller, Charleston Southern
In a pretty strong Advocare Invitational field featuring the likes of LSU, Oklahoma State, Villanova, Florida State, and Memphis, Charleston Southern’s Grant Riller came away with some of the tournament’s best individual outings.
The junior guard, playing in front of his hometown fans in Orland, reeled off back-to-back 30-point games after a slow start to the Invite.
In CSU’s 74-51 win over UAB, Riller piled up 33-6-6 with two steals on 13-17 shooting and 6-7 from the free throw line.
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He followed up that nearly-perfect performance with a 32-5-9-2 line in a 78-75 win over Memphis in the fifth-place game. He also hit four three-pointers in that win, filling out the only area of his attack that had needed improvement in the showings.
Riller’s teammate, senior Jarrell Brantley, had a strong tournament himself, going for 24, 27, 19, and 15.
There were some strong candidates this week. Honorable mention goes to Chris Clemons’ 45-8-3-1 in an overtime loss to Georgetown, Ja Morant’s 29-13-12-1-1 in Murray State’s win over Missouri State AND 38-9-5-1 in the Racers’ loss to Alabama, RJ Cole’s 31-6-5-2 in Howard’s win over Cal Baptist, Jermaine Marrow’s 38-4-6-1 in Hampton’s win over Richmond, Josh Sharkey’s 25-6-6-7 in Samford’s win over IPFW, Mike Daum’s 41-10-4-two blocks in SDSU’s win over UTSA, and dueling performances in Hofstra’s 80-71 victory against Cal State Fullerton – 37-5-6 for Justin Wright-Foreman and 38 from Kyle Allman.