The Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team returned to the practice floor after a three-week break as they prepare for the stretch run of the season.
The Cougars, who finished the first semester with a sparkling 12-2 record, will kick off the second semester when they face Odessa College on Monday in Odessa, Texas, at 5 p.m. The contest can be seen on the Internet at http://www.ihigh.com/wncc. The contest was added after the Cougars’ contest with Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture scheduled for Jan. 7 was cancelled.
"We went out looking for a good game once Technical Agriculture informed us that five guys were ineligible. I wanted to get us in a big game to open our eyes and wake us up to begin the second semester," he said. "This is what we have been playing for to get into our subregion play. Odessa is talented. They are ranked 15h in the country and coached by Coach Helms, who has over 30 years as a head coach. He has sent nine guys to the NBA. They are one of the winningest JUCOs in the country and they have one of the top scorers in the country in Derrick Barden. They are going to present some challenges, but that is exactly what we wanted.
"We could have just played an all-star game or not played a game at all and just play 29 games in the regular season. But, I wanted to test ourselves. We contacted everybody from Monroe to Salt Lake, Western Wyoming, Gillette, Sheridan, Midland, South Plains. We contacted all these schools and some of them needed games, but they didn't want to play us. We will take that as a compliment, I guess, but I am thankful to Odessa that they allowed us to come down and play them and we hope we play our best."
Odessa enters the contest ranked No. 15 in the country with a 132-1 record. The Wranglers only defeat came to Collin County Community College 75-68 back on Nov. 18. Since then, Odessa has ran off six straight wins, including a 94-86 over Ranger College in the New Mexico Junior College Classic on Friday.
Odessa is led by Derrick Barden, the sixth-leading scorer in the nation at 22.333 points a game. WNCC should be able to match Odessa's fire power offensively and defensively. Raul Delgado comes into the contest has the 10th leading scorer in the country with an average of 20.929 points a game. Delgado has netted double figure scoring in all 14 games this season. The sophomore is also 18th in free throw percentage at 89 percent (34 of 38),
WNCC's Du[Vaughn Maxwell, Marko Kovacevic and Mike Peltz are also ranked among the leaders in the nation after the first semester. Peltz, an Alliance graduate, is fourth in the country in assists, averaging 7..08 a game. He has dished out 92 assists in the 13 games he saw action in this season.
Maxwell is 49th in scoring (17.923), 24th in rebouinding at 10 boards a contest, and 36th in blocks a game (2.00), while Kovacevic is 32nd in rebounding at 9.27 a game and 20th in blocks a game with 2.43 a game.
This game, however, will be important as they enter subregion play, which includes home subregion contests against Otero Junior College on Friday and Trinidad State Junior College on Saturday afternoon.
"Friday's game against Otero might be the biggest subregion game of the year in the fact that Otero has shown in the preseason that they are really good. Everybody that has seen them as said they are really talented. They have a core group of sophomore back, similar to us. We only play each other once and if it comes down to a tiebreaker of who may host the regional tournament, this game will be huge. We are hoping that the Odessa game will prepare us mentally and physically to play well next weekend here at home."
Beck said that his team will be ready for the battle against another ranked team. He said his players returned from the holiday break in good shape and are anxious to get the second semester underway.
"Everybody came back in relatively good shape and there has been bright spots," he said. "All the guys are back and we are focused. We want to host the regional tournament and we want to win the region and we want to get to the national tournament. I think those things are within our grasp if we continue to get better. I don't think we have played our best basketball yet, which is encouraging."
No comments:
Post a Comment