Men's Basketball:
Doing things the right way
Two of Midland College’s players signed
to play big-time college basketball. A.J. Lewis
signed with the University of Texas, and Ivory
Clark signed with Washington State University.
This season our North Lake Blazers defeated Midland
72-66. I always enjoy defeating highly ranked
scholarship schools with our players, whom the
scholarships have overlooked. We had eight wins
this season against basketball scholarship schools.
April is a very busy time when you are a junior
college basketball coach. I am busy holding campus
tryouts and attending tournaments in search of
players with potential to play college basketball.
By the end of April, I will have seen more than
250 players in action. The other challenge is
getting our departing sophomores opportunities
to play at four-year universities. So far we have
had coaches from 23 different states call to inquire
about our players.
Bassey Ekong and Kenneth Cage were the first
two players from this year’s team to sign
a letter of intent. Ekong will be playing at Mesa
State University in Grand Junction, Colo., while
Kenneth Cage will be playing at Tarleton State
University in Stephenville, Texas. Aaron Smith,
Len Medcafe and Rajshad Anderson have visited
universities and are in the process of choosing
where they are going to play next season.
Derek Pickett, our other sophomore, will attend
the University of North Texas but will not play
because he has a history of being injury-prone.
I am pleased that all five of our sophomores will
be continuing their education. That is a major
priority for us.
We believe in doing things the right way and
it seems to be paying off for us. The past two
years we tied for the Metro Athletic Conference
championship and we are optimistic that next season
we will do very well since we have nine guys returning.
As always, we will play a very challenging schedule,
which includes tournaments in Missouri, Colorado
and New Mexico. More than ever, our goal will
be to win the NJCAA national tournament in March
in Delhi, New York.
You may be aware that North Carolina won the
NCAA National championship for Division I universities.
We wear uniforms that are like North Carolina’s
uniforms with “Lake” being substituted
for “Carolina.” I enjoyed telling
our players that it was great that the team that
wears our uniforms won the national championship.
Oh well, we may not be on North Carolina’s
level of size or talent, but we plan on working
as hard as they do.
— Tim McGraw is the head coach of the
men’s basketball team.
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