The smell of an old locker room, the smell of old books mixed with hard work and sweat as the men’s basketball team comes together to prepare for the first scrimmage.
“HOW HARD WILL YOU WORK!, WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG HOW WILL YOU RESPOND, WHEN ADVERSITY HITS HOW WILL YOU RESPOND? HOW WILL YOUR ATTITUDE BE WHEN THINGS GO WRONG,” James Giacomazzi says, getting the men’s basketball team amped up.
The final words that were said before hitting the court for the first time were “Brotherhood,” something we all try to live by on this team, sticking together and being there for one another no matter what.
Coming out of the gates one of the main freshman point guards Elliot Mobley had dished out the first fourth Assists to give the Hawks basketball team a 12-0 start against Porterville College. But it wasn’t easy for long as Porterville made a run going into the second half. “THIS IS A TEAM YOU CAN’T LET HANG AROUND WE NEED TO PUSH THEM OUT AND KEEP THEM OUT,” Giacomazzi says as we head out to the second half of the basketball game.
Midway through the game, Sterling McClanahan hits two, or three’s that almost steal the win for the Hawks. But we needed two stops for the game to be sealed and after the Hawks were able to get that last stop we knew the game was ours. After the game I talked to the point guard who had the most assists this weekend “For this to be my first Juco tournament I think I did well on both sides of the ball and controlled the pace of the game very well, as a team for this to be our first time as a team playing someone else going three and one we played with great energy and I can see that this is going to be a great season.”
Eliot Mobley said so. I also got to talk to one of the sophomore transfers from CSM college Alex Martin he said when I asked about this weekend’s tournament “I think that we did really well and got along on and off the court, another thing that I like is that we all played well team defense and played for one another as a team. The sky’s the limit for this team if we continue to play together and play as a team.” Leaving this tournament I think that we have a lot to learn from and still a lot of growth but we are headed in the right direction.
Navyeon Reed is a staff writer on the Express. Follow him @navi.reed
