Kelley Wins Again
By Jim Richards

Good things happen to good people and good awards to go good players.

SMCC guard Tyrone Kelley notched his second ACCAC Div.II Player of the Week Award (for the week of Feb.17) after a magnificent week that included a career-high 41-point performance in a triple-overtime victory over Cochise College.

With his ability to get the foul line at crunch time --something he's done over and over again this season in helping the D-II Cougars (20-7, 14-5) to third place in the D-I dominated ACCAC--Kelley hit an astounding 26 of 30 foul shots in the amazing 119-114 win over Cochise, and nearly single-handedly kept the Cougars in the game before fouling out late in the third overtime.

Kelley even drew comparisons to NBA icon Michael Jordan during the game, at least from Cochise head coach Jerry Carrillo, who first pleaded with officials to quit giving "Michael Jordan" calls while driving to the basket. He later pleaded with his club to guard "Michael Jordan."

"I guess I'll take it as a compliment," said Kelley, who smiled at Carrillo during the game after first hearing Carrillo refer to him as Michael Jordan. "I just wanted to come out with a win."

The banged-up Kelley followed that with a 20-point performance after coming off the bench in 92-85 win over Yavapai, a game he hit 10 of 10 foul shots.

"He get to the rim better than anybody I've coached," SMCC head coach Dan Nichols said. "He plays as good of defense as anybody I've had. He does a lot of things. He has real good body control and he's so strong that when they end up reaching in, they end up hacking his arm but it doesn't really affect his shot."

"He has a pretty good understanding of when to go to the basket. He kind of waits as the game progresses and when we really need a basket, he'll go to the rim."

Playing with the balanced Cougars, Kelley isn't at the top of any of the latest ACCAC statistical categories. He's 11th in the league in scoring (at 16.1 points per game) and third in free throws (84.5 percent).

But anyone that's watched the Cougars this season has seen what kind of a player Kelley is, especially at crunch time.

Four-year colleges and universities have noticed.

"He's being recruited by everybody, you name it," Nichols said.