Our latest weekly look at Harbour players in college basketball in the States features double-doubles for Alex Talma and Katie Diakhaby, a first look at Joel Coffey’s efforts, plus plenty of other good performances.

Brooke Blair ran up her fourth twenty points effort of the season as Idaho State Bengals accounted for Portland State 88-59. Blair had a fine all-round game adding a game high 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals. Fourty-eight hours later the Bengals swept their road double header with an 85-71 win at Sacramento State. Once again Blair filled the stats sheet with 11 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists a block and a steal.

Blair still sits in the top 15 NCAA Division 1 three-point shooters this season and enhanced that standing with five from ten from beyond the arc across the two games. The Bengals are now 3-3 in the Big Sky Conference.

Player of the week on the men’s side was Alex Talma. The Biola University big man produced his second career double-double (15 points and 10 rebounds) as the Eagles came agonizingly close to recording their first PacWest Conference win going down 64-62 to Hawaii Pacific Sharks.

Ella Fotu plays for the Hawaii Pacific women’s team and they take the team of the week award after moving to the top of the PacWest Conference with a 9-1 record. The Sharks defeated previous leaders Azusa Pacific 73-69 with a follow up 69-61 success against Biola.  Both victories were achieved on the road with Fotu prominent in both games. The Junior guard scored 7 points and grabbed 9 rebounds, including three off the offensive glass, against Azusa. She followed that with 8 points and a trio of assists and steals against Biola.

Jack Salt and the Virginia Cavaliers are travelling nicely recording a seventh straight Atlantic Coast Conference win at Wake Forrest. Salt had 4 rebounds, a couple of points and a block in a solid 59-47 win for the Cavaliers. With an overall 18-1 record they are ranked No 2 in NCAA Division 1 Men’s basketball.

Tera Reed once again led the Virginia Commonwealth Rams scoring with 15 points to add to 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a block. Unfortunately the Rams were edged 79-75 by Massachusetts and are now 1-5 in Atlantic 10 Conference games.

Also in the Atlantic 10 Fordham University Rams eked out an attritional 43-38 win at Richmond to improve to 6-1 in conference play. Zara Jillings played her part – she only scored two points but contributed a team high 3 assists, 5 rebounds and a block.

Tiarna Clarke had a useful 7 points on 3 from 4 shooting but Northern Colorado Bears gave up a 14 points half time advantage to slip to a 78-70 loss at North Dakota. The Bears hold a 5-2 record in the Big Sky Conference.

In Junior College Joel Coffey is averaging 4.6 points, 3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in his freshman year at State College of Florida.

His season best is 15 points against Florida State Jacksonville in December.

In a non-conference game Katie Diakhaby scored almost half of the Northeastern College points (26 points) as they went down 62-59 against Northwest Kansa Tech. For good measure Diakhaby added 17 rebounds in another outstanding performance.

Olivia Bell scored 11 points on 5 from 7 shooting as North Dakota State beat Bismarck College 76-66. North Dakota are purring along with a 4-0 record in conference play and 18-2 overall.