NCAA Basketball: Jalen Terry and John Tonje latest Players of the Week

It is the end of week 2 and that means it is time to hand out another Busting Brackets Player of the Week award. Any of you who are new to this, the rules are simple. I pick a player of the week from the Power 5 ranks and one from the Mid Major ranks and do a little write up on them. The only games that do not count are those against non division 1 competition. Every other game is fair game. I then pick the player who had the biggest impact for the week.

I missed week one. I had alot going on last week and it escaped me. Ryan Kalkbrenner would have been the player recognized from the Power 5 ranks. He tied the Creighton record for points in a game with 49 points and 11 rebounds. He earned the National Player of the Week. The mid major player of the week is a guy I think we are going to be hearing a lot about this year and that is Ante Brzovic from Charleston. He had a huge week and led Charleston to two big wins. 

This week the player of the week takes us to the Big Ten where a transfer had a gigantic game in a gigantic game for his team. The mid major player takes us to the MAC where we visit another transfer into a program that isn’t winning a lot but is a lot of fun to watch and has a roster that could surprise some people.

Mid Major - Jalen Terry (Eastern Michigan)

The guard transferred into the Eagles program from DePaul where he was often injured. When Terry did play for the Blue Demons he stood out a lot. Eastern Michigan is not a team who is going to win a lot and they likely won’t be very good this year but Terry looks like he is ready to have a huge season.

In a win over IU Indianapolis the guard scored 29 points on 10-17 shooting, 6-10 from deep. The guard also added 9 rebounds to the tally. It was a game that he had every once in a while at DePaul and showed his true ceiling. Terry can be an elite scorer. In a loss to Cleveland State the guard scored 25 points on 7-14 shooting, including 6-10 from deep. He added 4 rebounds and 2 assists to this stat line. It was a game the Eagles lost by 9 points and if you watched it Terry kept them in the game.

Eastern Michigan isn’t great and likely won’t win much but Terry may be a guy we talk about a lot this year. It seems he is finally in a place where he can best showcase his talents. He will likely be one of the scoring leaders in the MAC and is the focal point for the Eagles on offense. He is going to get every opportunity to continue to score points at a high rate and will need to score at a high rate to keep Eastern Michigan in games.

Power Conference - John Tonje (Wisconsin)

Tonje started his career at Colorado State and worked himself into a good enough star to transfer to the SEC to play for Missouri. Tonje was injured early at Missouri and didn't play much. That Tigers team didn’t win a game in the league, and the guard decided to play his last season in Madison. So far, it has paid off in a big way.

The Badgers guard showed out in a big way in his only game last week. In a blowout win over Arizona, the guard scored 41 points on 8-14 shooting, 4-6 from deep, and 21 out of 22 from the charity stripe. Without that performance, the Badgers wouldn’t have won that game. The guard also had six rebounds. It may have only been one game, but it was huge, and no one else came close to being that good last week.

There will be very few times that a player who only played one game finds his way onto the list, but when you beat a top-10 team and score 41 doing it. Rules can be broken. Congrats to the Wisconsin program on a huge win and to John for being recognized for his fantastic week. I am sure with the way his season has been going we will see Tonje on this list many more times this year. It was a great week for basketball, and I can’t wait until next week.