Official MAC Release | CMU vs. Ohio Preview
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - Junior Jalisa Olive was named Mid-American Conference Sixth Player of the Year while four other Central Michigan women's basketball players earned All-MAC honors, as voted on by the league's coaches and team media representatives, the league office announced on Tuesday.
Sophomore Taylor Johnson and freshman Crystal Bradford both gathered honorable mention all-conference honors. Bradford, Jas'Mine Bracey and Jessica Green were three of the five members on the MAC All-Freshman Team.
CMU has now captured the Sixth Player of the Year award for two straight seasons, while it has had seven all-freshman team honorees in the last four seasons. The All-MAC honorees give the Maroon and Gold 11 in the past four seasons.
Olive came off the bench for the Chippewas and averaged 15.7 minutes per game. She finished 15th in the conference in steals per game at 1.9 and is third on the team with 52. She helped the CMU bench average just under 25 points per game and was the leading scorer at Ball State when she scored a 26 points, the most by a Chippewa this year. Olive scored 11 of the bench's 33 points in the overtime loss to the conference's top team, Bowling Green. She is averaging 5.1 points per game along with 1.7 steals while playing an average of 15.7 minutes per game. Five times this year she has scored in double figures and nine times she has had three or more steals while dishing out over three assists five times.
Johnson has scored in double figures 11 times during MAC play with two of those being part of a double-double. She finished third in conference three-point field goal percentage at 42.2 percent. Johnson hit a team-high six three-pointers against Northern Illinois putting her tenth in program history to hit six three's in a game.
Bradford finished conference play 10th in scoring (13.3 points per game), eighth in rebounds (7.8 per game), second in steals (2.6 per game) and second in blocked shots (1.8 per game). She currently leads the Chippewas with 13.3 points per game and 7.9 rebounds per game. Currently she is on pace to have the second-best points per game average as a freshman and the third best rebounds per game average.
Bracey has started every game she has played in as a Chippewa. She scored more than 10 points twice during conference play and recorded one double-double at Eastern Michigan. She is third in conference blocks per game averaging .8. per game and is on pace to finish seventh on the all-time freshmen points per game list at CMU (9.3) and fifth on the rebounds per game chart (6.9).
Green currently leads the team with 80 assists on the season and is second in scoring averaging 11.7 points per game. She scored in double figures in 10 out of the 14 MAC games she played in, averaging 12.7 points per game. Six times she dished out four or more assists and is currently averaging three a game. She is on track to finish with the fourth-best points per game average as a CMU freshman.
The Maroon and Gold will compete against Ohio in the second round of the MAC Tournament on Wednesday at noon. Fans can follow all the action before and during the tournament on cmuchippewas.com.
