Eastern Michigan Athletics
John Bowler Earns Weekly MAC Award
11/21/2005 3:54:41 PM | Men's Basketball
Senior forward named West Division Player of Week after helping Eagles beat California
CLEVELAND, Ohio--Eastern Michigan University senior forward John Bowler (Chicago, Ill.-Notre Dame) was rewarded for his efforts in leading the Eagles to a 67-65 upset win over the University of California-Berkeley (Nov. 18) by being named the Mid-American Conference West Division Player of the Week for the first week of the 2005-06 season.
Bowler, a 6-foot-9, 260-pound senior, turned in the 16th double-double of his career when he scored 19 points with 12 rebounds in the win over the visiting Golden Bears last Friday. Bowler finished the game by making 8-of-10 field goals, all three free-throw attempts, while adding two assists and one blocked shot. He scored 15 points with 10 rebounds to lead the Eagles to a 34-33 halftime lead over Cal.
The weekly MAC award is the third for Bowler who also won the honor, Dec. 28, 2003, and Nov. 22, 2004. He was a 2005 preseason All-MAC West selection. With his first-game effort he has moved into 33rd on the EMU career scoring list with 883 points and his 512 rebounds is good for the 20th spot in school history.
The EMU-Cal game marked the coaching debut of EMU’s Charles E. Ramsey and featured a coaching battle between Ramsey and his former boss, Cal Head Coach Ben Braun. Ramsey, a 1992 EMU graduate, was an assistant under Braun at both EMU and California. Braun was EMU’s head coach for 10 years (1986-96) and left Eastern to take over the Cal program after becoming the winningest head coach in EMU men’s basketball history (185-132).
The Eagles will attempt to keep the magic going with a Saturday (Nov. 26) road tilt at North Dakota State in Fargo, ND
