CONCORDIA – Ahead of tomorrow night’s 2020-21 season opener, Cloud County Community College men’s basketball coach Jordan Altman has looked at his prior years of coaching to see if anything can compare to what this season is set to be like.
In a year that will feature just two non-conference games, potential last-minute opponent changes, extra precautions due to COVID-19, and a roster with just two returners, this year might more closely resemble Altman’s first year as head coach of the T-Birds when CCCC played a gauntlet 26-game Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference schedule with just four non-conference games to prepare.
“Fortunately I do have a little experience in preparing for a schedule like this as the conference had a 26-conference game setup for a two-year stretch which included my first year here at Cloud,” said Altman. “There’s a lot of turnover this year in the KJCCC both at the coaching level and on the bench so we aren’t completely sure what to expect other than the league being as competitive as it’s always been in the past.” “Our schedule really doesn’t do us any favors once we get to conference play with five games against four opponents who either made the canceled NJCAA National Tournament last year or teams that are expected to contend for a National Tournament berth, so there’s not much room for error once we do get going.”
Returning from last year’s squad are sophomores Dyelan Reed and David Acosta as the two combined to provide just under nine points and six rebounds per game a year ago, but will bring some much-needed experience of having gone through a full year in the KJCCC. Both Reed and Acosta are looking to take another step forward into a larger role for the T-Birds this season as the rest of the roster will be made up of four sophomore transfers and nine freshmen.
One thing that Cloud County is hoping to improve upon from last year is the rebounding margin against Conference opponents as the T-Birds had a negative rebounding margin in KJCCC play. The T-Birds roster features four players that stand 6’7” or taller this season, with two more players standing at 6’6” in the 15-man roster.
CCCC will play host to Tabor College JV on Wednesday at 7 PM to open the season and will play their non-conference finale on Saturday against the Bethany College JV team at 4 p.m. before opening KJCCC cross-division play on Jan. 27 at home against Northwest Kansas Technical College. The first road game for the T-Birds will come on Jan. 30 with a trip to Colby while the KJCCC East Division opener will take place on Feb. 22 at home against Butler. The full 2020-21 schedule for Cloud County can be viewed online at www.cloudtbirds.com
Due to KJCCC rules, no fans will be allowed to any KJCCC athletic event through Feb. 5. All CCCC home basketball games this season will be streamed live at www.cloudtbirds.com/video/tbirdsportsnetwork.
--cloudtbirds.com--