Nobody is going to argue with you that the 2010-11 college basketball season was a disappointment for Central Michigan University.

This season, while there have been some down points in non-conference play, there are some noticeable numbers that lead me to believe that MAC play should be a successful one for the Chippewas.

The big thing I notice is balanced scoring.

If you look at last season’s totals, just three Chippewas averaged 7 points or more per game for the season. Trey Zeigler averaged 16.3 points per game while Jalin Thomas had 15.9 ppg and Derek Jackson was at 7.5 ppg. Basically if Zeigler and Thomas were having an off night, CMU was going to struggle to score.

This season, the Chippewas have five players averaging 6.9 points ore more.

Zeigler is leading the team at 16.7 ppg, but Jackson is putting up 11.3 ppg while freshman Austin McBroom is posting 10.2 ppg.

Add in Andre Coimbra scoring 9.1 ppg and Olivier Mbaigoto scoring 6.9 ppg and you can see that the starting five for CMU all have scoring ability.

What is even more promising is that the three leading scorers of the team are sophomores and a freshman.

While there is a lot of MAC play left, the Chippewas should be able to compete for the MAC West because of their scoring options that they didn’t have a season ago.