Jo’el Emanuel is a Swiss Army knife – FDU needs to make the most of him
Amid the changes around FDU, Emanuel has been nothing but consistent, playing his part by contributing a little bit of everything.
Programming note: If you’re looking for coverage of Princeton’s latest comeback win Monday over Columbia, I will have a longer story free to all subscribers sometime Thursday.
HACKENSACK – Three times in FDU’s past four games, Jo’el Emanuel has played at least 40 minutes.
The “at least” is necessary there because in the first game of that run, FDU needed two overtimes to finally vanquish Le Moyne 91-86. Of the 50 possible minutes in that game, Emanuel was on the court for 47.
The Knights have endured a bumpy ride to their 3-2 mark in the Northeast Conference, tied for second in the league. After a 2-0 start and that 2OT affair, they lost two at home, and leading scorer Terrence Brown did not play in the latter game against Central Connecticut for “undisclosed” reasons, effectively a one-game benching.
FDU had to make a quick trip to Chicago State for a game on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Brown – the No. 8 scorer in Division I at 21.0 ppg – returned to the lineup but had more turnovers (eight) than baskets (six). The offense in general was more sluggish than usual – except, that is, for Emanuel, whose 22 points came on 7-of-9 shooting from the floor and 8-of-9 from the foul line to deliver a 58-48 FDU win.
If you know one thing about Emanuel’s game, it’s probably that he makes dunks like this:
As eye-catching as those are, Emanuel is no one-trick pony. The junior forward is staying in games for 40 minutes for a reason, after all.
Amid the changes around FDU’s program in the past 12 months – from seeing Ansley Almonor transfer to Kentucky to the emergence of Brown as a prolific scorer and the additions of several transfers to the starting five – Emanuel has been nothing but consistent, playing his part by contributing a little bit of everything. As the conference grind continues, the Knights will need to rely on him more than ever as they aim for a high seed in the NEC tournament.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Guarden State to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.