Eastern Michigan Basketball Vs. Norfolk State

I thought that my shooting basketball was done for the season when the clock hit 0:00 on Friday night at the Quicken Loans Arena.  In order to make it to the NCAA tournament, Eastern would have had to win the MAC Tournament.  In order to make the NIT, they would have had to have a better record.  Little did I realize, there was a third option.

That third option is known as the CollegeInsider.com Tournament and has been around since 2009.  They decided that since there are over 300 teams in Division I basketball, there is room for another tournament.  Part of me agrees with them but part of me thinks of how many bowl games we have now.  Because this is a relatively new tournament, I don't think they have the structure in place to host games at neutral (or relatively neutral sites), so they host the games at campus locations.  Because of this, I got a chance to shoot pictures at one more basketball game this year.

 Eastern's opponent was the Norfolk State Spartans which is a historically black college from Virginia (In Norfolk no less).  Neither team has faced each other in the past, although the Spartans have faced other MAC opponents.  Norfolk State managed to make one NCAA tournament appearance where they upset Missouri as a 15 seed.  While I was thinking Norfolk State would be about at the level of some of Eastern's pre-season opponents, I wasn't sure if they would be a pushover or not.  This is a picture from the warmups.

 Raven Lee going for a basket.

 Darrell Combs getting mugged on the way to the basket.

 Darrell Combs working his way to the basket.

 Just a shot of the Convocation Center.  I'm hoping that Eastern Michigan can use this appearance as something to build on for better things.

 Raven Lee taking another shot.

 J.R. Sims dunking.  I don't recall this ever happening before.

 Daylen Harrison working his way to the basket.

 Mike Talley working around the defense.

Mike Talley on defense.

Eastern ended up winning 58-54.  I'm not sure where the next game will be, but if it is here I will try to make it to the game.