If you haven’t yet heard about the 6‘2 senior point guard named Norris Cole, who is tearing up the Horizon League and attempting to lead his Cleveland State club to a conference crown and a return trip to the NCAA Tournament, it’s alright since without being focused on ESPN, the rest of the nation really hasn’t either. But after his historic game of tallying 41 points, 20 rebounds, 9 assists, and 3 steals this past weekend, thus joining former Oklahoma stand-out Blake Griffin as the only players in the past 15 years to notch a 40 point-20 rebound game, fans around the country are surely beginning to take notice.
What make’s Cole’s tremendous effort against Horizon League foe Youngstown State even more spectacular is the fact that he just missed notching his team’s first ever triple-double in school history. It’s also pretty remarkable that a point guard could pull down 20 boards in any contest considering that Cole is roughly 8 inches shorter than the 6’10 Griffin, who dropped 40 and 23 on Texas Tech in 2009. But the average fan shouldn’t be surprised since Cole has pulled down 10 or more boards in 3 other contests this season.
Despite his now legendary performance this weekend, Cole really should be on everyone’s radar since he is a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award, annually given out to the best point guard in the nation. The player who now regularly rocks the high top fade truly is one of the more underrated players in the country. Prior to his recent explosion, he already led the Horizon in scoring(21.1 ppg), assists(5.4 ast), and steals(2.3 stl) and could be one of those March Madness Cinderella stories like Jimmer Fredette of BYU dropping 30+ points on Florida last season. Currently, the Vikings have an impressive 22-5 overall record and are sitting in 2nd place in the Horizon, with a 11-4 league mark, sitting just one game behind conference leading Valparaiso.
Considering just how bad the local NBA team, the Cleveland Cavaliers are playing this season, maybe fans should rally behind Cole and the upstart Cleveland State Vikings this season. I’m sure everyone is just hoping they make it back to the Big Dance, since they have proven to know what to to when they get there, like when they pulled one of the bigger upsets of the ‘09 Tourney by upsetting the Jeff Teague led Wake Forest Deacons in the first round that year.
Check out some highlights of Norris Cole’s historic performance:
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
