Brits in College Recap – Week 5

By Rowan Shiell
On Monday we had a treat as Maine took on Florida State. The game was shown on ESPN America (on Monday morning). One of Maine’s best players is Scotland’s Alasdair Fraser, who sadly didn’t have one of his best games but had a nice highlight play, deep in the second quarter with the game all but decided in favor of Florida State.

Maine guard, Xavier Pollard, drove to the baseline, drawing a double team. Just when you thought he was either going to turn the ball over or step outside as he was too deep to get a shot off, he shovels a pass off to Fraser who had given him a screen and rolled towards the basket. Fraser, caught the pass with a clear path to the basket and went up with determination for a two handed flush.

Other than that the game was a no contest as Florida won 91-59.

Not many games on last week as the student-athletes took care the academic side of the things leading up to the Christmas break.

Player of the Week

Fahro Alihodzic | University Alabama at Birmingham | Junior | Center | @fahroalihodzic

On Saturday Fahro dropped a career high 17 points on South Alabama (4-5) to end UAB’s (5-5) two game losing streak. He made eight of a dozen field goal attempts, grabbed three rebounds and dished out an assist. Added to that he was also named UAB’s Student Athlete of the the Week as he has maintained a 3.5 GPA in the classroom as well.

Alihodzic is averaging 10.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and a team-best 1.5 steals per game on the season.

Best of the Rest

Alasdair Fraser | Maine | Junior | Forward | @bigali15

Fraser almost had a double double, with eight points and eight assists. This game was only for the devoted as it wasn’t pretty. Maine shot 34% of their field goal attempts (5-21 on 3’s) but won the battle of the boards (39-36) if only by a slight margin. FSU did a good job of controlling the game.

Robert Gilchrist | Florida State | Junior | Forward | @gilchristro
We talked about the Maine/Florida State game but we didn’t mention Robert Gilchrist who plays for the Seminoles. His stats are not overwhelming and most of his minutes came when the game was in the bag, but scoring seven points and snagging eight rebounds in 12 minutes is worth mentioning.

Abodunrin Olaseni | Iowa | Sophomore | Centre | @agolaseni
This was actually a performance we missed in Week 4 – but in just 11 minutes, Olaseni had 8 points (tying career high), a career high 9 rebounds and 2 blocks on 3/4 shooting in a win over South Dakota. The game before that, in a 88-59 victory over Texas A&M-CC Islanders and fellow Brit Dale Francis, he had a season high 15 minutes finishing with 6 points, 1 rebound, 1 assists and 3 blocks. Francis had 2 points and a 1 steal in 14 minutes of action,

Extras

• Northwestern senior Alex Marcotullio was absent from the Butler game on Saturday, due to back spasms. No word on when he is expected back but they play Texas State next Monday. Let’s hope a week’s rest is enough time to treat this injury.

• On Tuesday, Patrick Nyeko got 14 minutes of action in Nevada’s (6-4) victory over Cal Poly and scored four points to go with two rebounds for the victors.

• College of Charleston lost an exhibition game against Anderson, a division two team, without leading scorer, Andrew Lawrence, who suffered an ankle injury against Louisville last week.
• Raphell Thomas-Edwards is seeing decent action at Buffalo, most recently finishing with 2 points and a career high 6 rebounds in 18 minutes in a win over Niagara.

Image Credit: UABSports.com