Ryan Westbrooks                                                                                        Chauncey Thompson

By BRYAN GRISHAM

CSCC Sports Information Director

A pair of Cleveland State Cougars have decided to take their considerable basketball skills to the next level as Chauncey Thompson and Ryan Westbrooks have both decided to attend the University of Montevallo in Birmingham, Alabama next season. The one-two punch of Mr. Inside (Thompson) and Mr. Outside (Westbrooks) were two of the main cogs in the machine for coach Lee Cigliano and the Cougars this past season as they finished with an impressive 20-9 record and a runner-up plaque in the conference tournament.

Westbrooks lit up the nets and the scoreboard all year long for the Cougars, averaging 22.7 points per outing, knocking down 78 shots from behind the three-point line while shooting 43 percent from three-point land. The 6'2 Nashville native shot 51 percent from the floor overall and 87 percent from the charity stripe as well.

"I had kind of mixed feelings when I got to Cleveland State, but when I got here and got to working with my teammates and coach Cig, it worked out well," said Westbrooks. "In choosing Montevallo it seems like a good fit for me,it's not too big or too small so I can stay focused. The campus is beautiful and the coaches really impressed me. I think that I can play immediately and of course my parents were a big factor, because I didn't want to get too far from them."

Thompson averaged 21 points per game this past season as the 6'3 Chattanooga native was nearly unstoppable at times. He shot 52 percent from the floor, averaged just over six rebounds per contest, grabbed two steals and scored over 500 points this season.

"Playing here at Cleveland State helped me mature as a player,"stated Thompson. "I like Coach Cig's style of play, get it up and down. I just thought it made me a better ball player all the way around. I fell in love with coach Young at Montevallo right away and I saw that he was a coach that I could connect with and I wanted to continue to play basketball, so it all kind of fell into place."

As the two Cougars move on to Montevallo, coach Cigliano knows he will have two big holes to fill next season.

"These two guys helped make us competitive this year and they will be hard to replace," stated Cigliano. "We were the region and state runner-up and we would not have gotten as far as we did without them. They both averaged over 20 points this year, they did a lot for the team in other areas as far as leadership. They believed in what we were doing and helped the team stay together and helped us to go as far as we did. We were one step away from the National Tournament and there is no way we would have done it without those two guys."

The Montevallo Falcons play in the Division II Gulf South League and coach Cigliano thinks that the Falcons got a good deal in signing both players.

"I knew that these guys would help us offensively when they got here, but I didn't know to what extent," continued Cigliano. "Ryan is one of the best pure shooters that I have ever had here in 13 years at Cleveland State and I think he will do the same thing at the next level. We averaged 90 points a game and these two guys averaged over 20 apiece. Chauncey did his scoring in a different way. He's a North and South, get to the basket kind of guy. One game in particular against Chattanooga State, he had 45 points and was unstoppable and that's just the way he plays. They are both very tallented athletes and I think that Montevallo is really lucky to get both of them."