2020 Review: M. Basketball Overcomes Slow Start, to Reach Playoffs for 12th Straight Year

The MSJC men's basketball team rebounded from a rough 3-8 start to the season and reached the CCCAA Southern California Regional playoffs for the 12th straight season.

The Eagles opened the year winning 3 of 4, but a seven-game losing streak seemed to derail MSJC's plans for the season.  MSJC, however, found a way to rally back as a four-game winning streak that began with a historic 55-48 win on December 14th over Riverside turned the season around.  The significance of the RCC win was that it earned Eagle head coach Patrick Springer his 400th career victory.  This past season Springer concluded his 16th year as the head coach of the MSJC program and his 20th overall in the CCCAA.  The Eagles would go on to add wins over Copper Mountain, Barstow, and Cerro Coso during the streak to set up a strong finish to the season.  Another four-game winning streak in late January propelled MSJC to an 11-5 league record and into a second-place finish in the inaugural season of the Inland Empire Athletic Conference and secured them a playoff spot.  The Eagles ended the year with a 15-14 overall record.  The season would come to an end with a 93-77 loss on the road to West Los Angeles in the second round of the Regionals.

Jamaal Barnes, a freshman from Bonita HS, had a breakout season for MSJC as he earned both First Team All-Conference and First Team All-State honors.  The 6'2 shooting guard averaged 18.5 points per game for the season and increased that all the way to 24.3 during IEAC games.  Barnes who scored over 20 points in 13 of the team's 16 conference games had a career-high 41 against College of the Desert on January 15th.  Sophomore Lenzell Simmons, Riverside Poly HS, earned Second Team All-IEAC honors for his play during the season.  Simmons averaged 12.2 points per game.  Kamien Cederlind (So. Temecula Valley) and Mekhi Hill (Fr. Vista Murrieta HS) both were named Honorable Mention by the conference.  Hill was the team's defensive stopper and in addition averaged over 8 points and 5 rebounds a game.  Cederlind set the school record for three-point shooting percentage as he finished the year with at an eye-popping 48.8% from long range.  Cederlind made 59 of 121 attempts on the year and finished out the regular season with an impressive 8 of 13 shooting night from three-point range against San Bernardino Valley as he scored a career-high 27 points.  Chidi Okwarabizie a sophomore from Lagos, Nigeria finished the season as the team's top rebounder at 8.5 per game, and sophomore point guard Jernard Jackson (Youngstown, NY) led the team in assists with 71 on the season.

The Eagles and Coach Springer are hard at work preparing for the 2020-21 season.  If you are interested in joining the Summer Class for men's basketball you can contact either coach Springer at pspringer@msjc.edu or assistant coach Taylor Bell at tbell@msjc.edu