Men's hoop team rebuilt to play hard

By Michael Leek
Sports Editor

The LCC men’s basketball team has been preparing for the season with an almost brand new roster.

Longtime Head Coach Mike Ingram said the team has only one returning player: sophomore guard Blake Samuel.

Last year was a tough year, Ingram said, and the Stars are starting over this season. Ingram said he had a hard time pushing the team to play hard and run hard last year.

Ingram said this year’s team has been a pleasant surprise because of how hard they are playing.

“I’ve always felt that if you give your best and play your hardest then you have an opportunity to win,” Ingram said. “These guys have actually been doing it; did everything we asked them to do. (They) run hard in practice, play hard and can be pushed in practice. So far they have been challenged without a lot of pushback.”

During the offseason, Ingram said he had the team focusing on conditioning.

“We don’t have a lot of size, so we’re trying to make sure that if we run into a team that appears on paper to be better than us we can play harder than them and run faster than them,” Ingram said.

Ingram and his staff were busy with a lot of recruiting this summer, as they had a hard restart for the team. He said he will be looking to two of the new recruits to bring in a winning mentality.

“Two players we recruited really hard were Jamison Eklund (from Pewamo-Westphalia High School) and Jay Wallace (from Williamston High School),” Ingram said. “We’re hoping they can come in and show some leadership, because they got some winning behind them.”

The Stars have already played their first game and started the season off against Aquinas College by winning 93-73.

LCC’s next game is Saturday, Nov. 4 in a tournament in Baltimore, Md. Ingram said this will be a test to find out how his team stack up with others.

“We’ll find out if all that running, all the being challenged in practice will make us competitive,” Ingram said.