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What a long, strange trip it has been for Ray Lee of the Eastern Michigan Eagles.
Maybe you’ve never heard of him. Or maybe you have, but remember him better as “Raven” Lee, the name he went by for his first few years in Ypsilanti. I say “first few years” because the Romulus product started his Eagles’ career back in 2012.
In college basketball years, that makes Lee practically ancient, leading to a host of obvious, longevity-based jokes like, “Did you ever guard George Gervin in practice?” or “What did you think when the school got rid of the name ‘Hurons’? Also, what was it like fighting for the actual Huron?”
For Ray Lee, a guy that looked to be destined for MAC greatness just a couple of seasons ago, it has been an oddly underwhelming senior campaign.
Rob Murphy’s Eastern Michigan team was supposed to be a real factor in the Mid-American Conference this year. Maybe the class team of the whole 12-team league. And Lee was going to be leading them all the way.
Except nothing went according to plan.
Can’t Throw a Rock in the Ocean
After a hot 4-1 start in MAC play, the Eagles imploded. From January 20 to February 21, they took the court ten times and won just a single game. Lee had gone from a guy scoring 20+ points every night in the non-conference to now being a complete afterthought; he'd get about a dozen or so minutes of court time, shoot miserably from the field, and have little to no impact on the game.
Check out these shooting lines, coinciding with the beginning of MAC play -- 1 of 6, 1 of 10, 1 of 1, 2 of 5, 6 of 17, 1 of 5, 1 of 7, 1 of 5, 1 of 8, 2 of 10. Oh, and there were a couple of suspensions during the season thrown in for good measure. This was not exactly a storybook ending.
Slowly but surely, however, Ray's confidence started to return. He dropped 27 on Western Michigan, albeit in a loss. Then 22, in another loss. This past Saturday, he was sharp again, going for 21 points against Northern Illinois. Miraculously, the Eagles also grabbed the victory, their first in the month of February.
Then last night happened.
In the Zone
Defying logic and everything that had happened on or off the court over the last four months, the man formerly known as Raven Lee popped for half a hundred. A fifty-spot. He drilled an eye-popping 10 3-pointers. Oh, and did I mention that he only logged 26 minutes? Eastern was up by 43 against the Chips of CMU, so Lee took a seat, even though almost a quarter of the game was still to be played.
And so concluded one of the more bizarre, remarkable, unexpected scoring binges we’ve seen in college basketball in some time.
It’s one of the main reasons we watch sports on a nightly basis. It’s the ultimate form of improvisational drama. Two teams take the court or field and there’s no telling exactly how the story is going to play out.
In this case, a player that was once a shooting star, then dimmed to a fading light, had reassumed his rightful place as leader of the hoops galaxy.
There are a whole bunch of teams that will be seeded above Eastern Michigan when the MAC tournament gets going next week. Having said that, you can bet your bottom dollar that not a single one of them will be dancing a jig when they see “EMU” slotted opposite them in the bracket.
After all, that is Ray Lee’s territory again; and there might be no stopping him now.
