NCAA Basketball: Clemons, Lipscomb top mid-major performers of the week
By Logan Butts
It’s February, and in NCAA basketball land that means we’re one month away from the Big Dance. Let’s see which mid-majors made the biggest moves this week.
Best Performance, Individual – Chris Clemons, Campbell
We went the first 10 weeks of this column without a repeat winner. But now, for the third consecutive week, a player has earned his second Best Individual Performance honor of the year.
Following in the footsteps of Ja Morant and Mike Daum, Chris Clemons is this week’s winner.
These guys are just too good to not receive serious All-American consideration at the end of the year, and Clemons’ week is an example of that.
The nation’s leading scorer dropped 39 in a pair of Campbell wins this week.
First, the senior hit a cold-blooded buzzer beater to give Hoftsra their first Big South loss of the season and to snap their eight-game winning streak.
He shot 11-22 from the floor and 8-15 from three-point range and added six rebounds, a steal and a block.
He followed that up with an encore of 12-21 from the field and 10-18 from three (!) in a blowout win over Longwood. He also compiled four rebounds and five assists in that one.
Clemons also passed a guy by the name of Larry Bird, among others, on the NCAA’s all-time scoring list this week.
Hofstra has been great this year, but I really need to see Clemons in the NCAA Tournament just once before his time as a Fighting Camel is over.
Honorable mention goes to Maine’s Andrew Fleming for shooting 18-20 from the field for 36 points in a win over UMass Lowell.
Others include: 33-16-5 from Stephen F. Austin’s Kevon Harris in an OT win vs Houston Baptist, Jon Elmore’s 44 points in a win over UTEP, Keaton Wallace of UTSA dropping 45 and 7 in an OT victory over Marshall (his teammate Jhivvan Jackson scored 46 in an OT loss to WKU this week), and 19 and 19 from Nate Grimes of Fresno State.