There was a lot of action among the mid-majors this week. Let’s take a look at what the best had to offer.
Best Performance, Individual – Matt Lewis, James Madison
The James Madison Dukes headed into the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) – leading Hofstra Pride’s arena on Saturday near the bottom of the conference standings.
But, thanks to a career-best performance from Matt Lewis, the Dukes left with a win.
The sophomore scored a career-high 40 points to go along with seven rebounds, seven assists, one steal, and one block in leading JMU to a 104-99 overtime victory in Hempstead, New York.
Lewis was 11-22 from the floor, including a very nice 6-9 from three-point range, and was a perfect 12-12 from the free throw line.
Barring a surprise run through the CAA Tournament, this upset will probably end up being the top performance of James’ Madison’s season.
Elsewhere across the nation, the two patron saints of this column, Chris Clemons and Mike Daum, had typically great weeks.
Clemons dropped 41 and made a game-saving block in Campbell’s 74-72 win at Longwood. Daum went for 38-20-3-3-5 in a 92-83 win over IPFW before joining Clemons in the exclusive 3,000-point club in a win vs South Dakota.
Other honorable mentions this week: 30-6-4-2-8(!) for Nathan Knight in a William & Mary OT win over Charleston, Elon’s Steven Santa Ana with 31-7-5-1 in a win over UNC Wilmington, Sacramento State’s Marcus Graves with a 24-7-7-2 in a win vs Weber State, UTEP’s Jordan Lathon with 32 and 18 in an OT loss to Rice, Lamine Diane’s 35-11-3 blocks-2 steals CSU Northridge in a OT win over UC Davis, John Axel Gundmundsson’s 20-10-10 triple double as Davidson beat Rhode Island, and Frankie Ferrari 23-6-7-4 in San Francisco’s win at BYU.