After the final whistle sounded Monday night, Marcus Keene trotted back to his team’s bench, grabbed a collapsible chair and slowly twirled it above his head before assuming his position at the back of Central Michigan’s handshake line.
For the nation’s leading scorer — who averaged a shade under 30 points per game this season — it served as a way to vent frustration, knowing that his historic run into college basketball lore may have ended with a simple uncontested layup to cut CMU’s deficit to 10 with 14 seconds remaining.
At the same time, Kent State sophomore Jalen Avery was mobbed by his teammates at the opposite end of the floor in celebration of his overtime heroics that propelled the Flashes into the quarterfinals of the MAC Tournament.