{"id":6167,"date":"2020-02-06T20:43:03","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T00:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/?p=6167"},"modified":"2020-02-06T21:35:14","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T01:35:14","slug":"mens-basketball-mid-season-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/mens-basketball-mid-season-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Men’s Basketball Mid-Season Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chance\u00a0<\/span>Thyhsen<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 In Motion Staff Writer<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This season, the Daytona State College\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team has a plethora of young, multicultural talent.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Consisting of six sophomores and seven freshmen, along with return player\u00a0<\/span>Kam\u2019Ron<\/span>\u00a0Cunningham and Coach Chad Donley, the Falcons are ready to compete again. Last year with a completely different coaching staff, they had a fantastic 25-7 season with a short but sweet run into the conference tournament under head coach Brock Morris, with other assistant coaches Justin Mann, Braxton Morris and Adeel Sahibzada.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not only did the Falcons have a great season, they had six of 14 players move on to major NCAA Division One institutions. The remaining eight are elsewhere at schools across the country continuing their basketball careers.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I spoke to Cunningham and Coach Donley separately, and asked what made them want to return this year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhat made me want to stay was because I already had a feel for the city, for the team, as well as the environment around me,\u201d said sophomore Cunningham. \u201cI wanted to stay where my feet where already at. I also was interested in meeting new people, and getting to know my new teammates, and coach. So that is what really convinced me to stay.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Afterwards, when speaking with Coach Donley, he echoed the sentiment by saying, \u201cWell, just being here in Daytona Beach for a year I really fell in love with the community, the school and everyone we work with. Even though the coach that hired me left, Coach McCann\u2019s reputation precedes him. He is one of the best on the rise young coaches in America, and while he was at Palm Beach State, they made the regional tournament every year with a chance to go to the national tournament.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI also wanted to expand my knowledge as far as basketball coaching goes, and what could be a better way to learn other than learning from one of the best young coaches who can still relate to the guys and has proven his success. So, I was excited when he got the job, and I was even more excited when he decided to keep me on as one of his assistant coaches.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Falcons are currently looking to keep the great energy and work up with a key phrase. \u201cTalent sets the\u00a0<\/span>floor,<\/span>\u00a0character sets the ceiling.\u201d Since new Head Coach Martin McCann has arrived on the scene, they have been doing just that. The Falcons are currently 12-9 this season and are averaging 85.2 points per game.\u00a0 When starting the new job as head coach, McCann added assistant coach JP Reagan to his staff since Donley was the only one to return.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI was eager to come coach at Daytona State in order to learn about coaching from a great young coach in Martin McCann,\u201d said Coach Reagan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This season, DSC is 1-3 going into conference play but are still shooting 48.6% from field goal and 66.1% from the stripe with leading scorers\u00a0<\/span>Damerius<\/span>\u00a0Wash (15.9 PPG, or points per game) and Marco Morency (15.6 PPG) leading the charge.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Checking out DSC\u2019s defensive statistics, it’s easy to see just why the team is succeeding. The Falcons are averaging 8 steals, 31 defensive rebounds, 4 blocks per game and only allowing opposing teams to score 81.5 PPG.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Falcons have been stricken by injuries to key players such as Alex\u00a0<\/span>Kotov<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Kam\u2019Ron<\/span>\u00a0Cunningham, Jacob Tracey,\u00a0<\/span>Damerius<\/span>\u00a0Wash, Marco Morency, Marcus Hopkins, and Jimmy Beane Jr. early in the season. All others have since returned, but\u00a0<\/span>Kotov<\/span>\u00a0has yet to play. He has missed 16 since he injured his left hand in early Nov. in a game against Denmark Tech.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAlex [<\/span>Kotov<\/span>] came here from Palm Beach State with a whole lot of experience, starting 80% of his games last year as a freshman and played a lot of minutes with a team that won a conference championship,\u201d said McCann. \u201cYou know, a guy outside of\u00a0<\/span>Adong<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Makuoi<\/span>\u00a0that had played the most college minutes of anyone on our team. So, losing a veteran guy that had been in big games, and in late moments that made big plays on a team that won a championship. Losing that experience really hurt us, and in addition to that, he is a very cerebral player with very high basketball IQ, that we definitely could have used.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A timetable on\u00a0<\/span>Kotov\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0return has been decided, and under the judgement of the coaching and medical staff at the school,\u00a0<\/span>Kotov<\/span>\u00a0be will applying for a medical redshirt, ensuring he still has 3 years of eligibility left.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With only a couple months left to play, keep an eye on the Falcons in the last conference games of the season and attend one of the four remaining home games of the season.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chance\u00a0Thyhsen\u00a0\u2013 In Motion Staff Writer\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This season, the Daytona State College\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team has a plethora of young, multicultural talent.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Consisting of six sophomores and seven freshmen, along with return player\u00a0Kam\u2019Ron\u00a0Cunningham and Coach Chad Donley, the Falcons are ready to compete again. Last year with Continue reading Men’s Basketball Mid-Season Recap<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6184,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions\/6184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}