The Western Nebraska Community College men's basketball team had a strong season a year ago reaching the semifinals of the Region IX tournament and head coach Billy Engel returns a plethora of that talent from a year ago as the Cougars open the 2022-23 season Friday at home.
WNCC will open the season Friday night with a 6 p.m. contest against Adams State Junior Varsity, a team that battled a lot of junior college teams a year ago.
Engel said his team is anxious to get the season going.
"I think we are ready to go," Engel said. "We have had a good long pre-season and definitely had some good, intense moments and did a lot of learning and facing adversity in some of our jamborees and scrimmages. But it is exactly what you need going into opening night."
A year ago, the Cougars opened with Adams State junior varsity down in Alamosa, Colorado, and won 91-57. This year the game is Cougar Palace.
Engel knows that Adams State will be competitive when they come to Cougar Palace.
"I know they will be competitive and they are well coached," he said. "You never know until you get out there and you execute the way you are supposed to, play as hard as you are supposed to, and play like a team like you are supposed to, and hopefully you let the scoreboard and everything figure itself out."
This year's team will have a different make-up of players as well. The Cougars return plenty of players from a year ago, but they also have a lot of new blood. Engel is excited for the talent on the team and what the returners add.
"The returners were not only important compartments of our offense and defense but they were impact players in the postseason last year," Engel said. "Our goals this year have a lot to do with going further in the postseason than last year so that should mean a lot to those returners. We hope they can use some of that leadership to pass on that mentality and ideology going into this season. But I think it is nice to have some incoming players that are transfers from other schools that have had different levels of success at their previous schools and they can bring that with them and some leadership with them from those schools. We also have some freshmen that have never been in college before but still have their level of success from where they came from so I think it is a nice mixture of winning experience and we hope that leadership kind of connects."
The Cougars return five players that saw plenty of action a year ago and another two that red-shirted a year ago.
The five key returners include 6-5 Rodney Sawyer from Pennsylvania; 6-4 CJ Johnson of Atlanta, Georgia; 6-5 Dimitrije Nikolic of Serbia; 6-3 Biko Johnson of Carson, California; and 6-7 Carl Thorpe of Rabun Gap, Georgia.
The two red-shirts are 6-3 Caio Monteiro of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and 6-3 Sergio Burchell of Canutillo, Texas.
With those seven players, the Cougars also have three transfers. Those include 6-3 Camryn Dennis from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who played at Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa; 6-2 Enzo Clouvel-Urie of Franconville, France, who played at Eastern Wyoming College; and 6-9 Zach O'Callaghan of Crystal River, Florida, who played at Bryant and Stratton College.
The freshmen on the team include 6-1 Tristin Thomas of Houston, Texas; 6-4 Ahmari Samuel of Sumtor, South Carolina; 6-9 Stephen Ovia of London, England; 6-5 Daniel Bula of Belgium; and 6-4 Maurice Walker of Denver, Colorado.
The Cougars are hoping to build upon their last scrimmage last week, which was against South Dakota School of Mines. In that scrimmage, the Cougars played well at times and not so well at times. Engel is hoping that they can put a complete game together.
"We certainly didn't execute or play up to the standard that we hoped in our last scrimmage but we still saw some good things," Engel said. "There is still a lot that we can take away from that. They were similar to Adams State as a four-year school and coached by four-year coaches. A lot of those players have been in the program for a little bit longer of tenure than the ones here that have been together for two months."
After Friday's home opener, the Cougars will get into the heat of the schedule with some tough games the following week, including two home games next week when they face Laramie County Community College on Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 6 p.m. and then Seward County Community College, who is pre-season ranked 16th, on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m.
After that, the Cougars head to Salt Lake City, Utah, to face Salt Lake Community College, who lost in the national championship game a year ago. "Salt Lake has Division I talent all over their roster and it will be a good test for us."
Next week, though, will just be as difficult.
"As our season goes along, I don't think we will have many off nights and I think there is talent all over the country," Engel said. "There is talent in our conference and we don't want to look too far past Friday because right now that is the only one that matters, but there are two really good games next week.
"We have Tuesday against Laramie County who is very, very talented and had a nice year last year and brings back a lot of talent. Seward County is currently ranked 16th in the country and they are well coached. We got to see them at a jamboree and they are extremely talented as well. We have to continue to work to get better and prepared to face teams like that."
Basketball season tickets can be purchased at the WNCC athletic office which is located in the Williams Building. Game tickets are also available at the door. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens.