106 Area Men Competing in NCAA DI Men's Basketball
It's mid-season, but these guys are off and flying. Take a look at where they are and what they are doing.
You don’t have to wait until you are an upperclassman to score points. The two highest scorers among MO and KS graduates competing in DI are sophomores. Phillip Russell (Vashon/Southeast Missouri State) leads his team with 18.7 points per game. That is the second highest production in the Ohio Valley Conference. This is after his season last year when as a freshman he averaged 13.4 points per game. He also set the SEMO freshman record by scoring 35 points in a game. He now has 832 career points. Zeke Mayo (Lawrence/South Dakota State) is the second highest scorer with 17.2 points per game, which is the fifth most in the Summit League. Zeke now has 748 career points with over half of his collegiate career ahead of him. The highest scoring freshman is Jevon Porter (Father Tolton/Pepperdine) who is avering 10.8 points per game for the Waves.
Another sophomore, Kobe Clark (Vashon/Southeast Missouri State) is the leading rebounder among the local men. That is just ahead of former high school teammate Cam’Ron Fletcher (Vashon/Florida State) who is pulling down 7.5 boards per game. Those two former Wolverines are two of five Vashon grads who are competing in NCAA DI Men’s Baskeball. Joining them in DI are Nick Kern, Jr. (Vashon/Virginia Commonwealth), Mario McKinney (Vashon/Texas-El Paso), and Keshon Gilbert (Vashon/Nevada-Las Vegas). Those are four sophomores and two juniors.
This area has produced several players who excel at dishing it out at the highest level of college basketball. But no one is getting more assists than Yuri Collins (St. Mary’s MO/Saint Louis University). Yuri’s 10.14 assists per game is not only the most in the nation, but he leads by over 2 assists per game. Dajuan Harris (Rock Bridge/Kansas) is the 6th best in the nation with 6.32 assists per contest. Dajuan is also 6th in the nation with an assist to turnover ration of 3.09.
One of the 6 Vashon grads I noted above is Keshon Gilbert/Vashon/Nevada-Las Vegas). Keshon leads all local players in steals per game and is third in the Mountain West Conference with 2.09 per game.
Ryan Kalkbrenner (Trinity Catholic/Creighton Univ.) continues to intimidate opposing offenses with a Big East Conference leading 2.37 blocks per game.
This edition’s spreadsheet is ranked by points per game for games played through Feb. 2. Browse through the list and you will see many strong performances. For example, Alston Mason (Blue Valley Northwest/Missouri State) is shooting 86.67% from the line while Demarcus Sharp (Charleston/Northwestern State) is knocking down over half his shots from beyond the arc.
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