GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Grand Rapids Community College men's basketball team is off to a hot start.
10-0, equaling its win total from all of last season.
"We push ourself this year," Raiders point guard Danyel Bibbs said about what has made the team successful. "Everybody is on each other about being at practice and push each other hard and I feel like everybody is good enough to make each other better so I feel like that is best aspect of our team this year."
The win streak is even more impressive when you consider how GRCC won the last two games.
After an incident in the teams game on December 3rd resulted in a two-game suspension for several players who left the team bench, the Raiders became very shorthanded.
In games on December 8th and December 10th, they played with just five guys, all of them playing all 40 minutes.
"As the game got going and my adrenaline got going, I honestly just forgot about the fatigue part," freshman guard Bashir Neely said. "I just kept playing basketball."
Neely, a 2022 Grand Haven High School graduate, was averaging 13 points in 21 minutes in the previous seven games, he scored 29 and 24 in the last two games.
"I just got through it because my teammates got me through it," Neely said. "We just push the ball up the court every possession, no plays off and just got through it."
While GRCC did score 90 and 83 points in the win, the circumstances did require a few changes.
"We really liked the five we had so we thought defensively we could be a little versatile," 2nd year Raiders head coach Joe Fox said. "The first half we mainly sat in a zone, and we tried to make the team shoot over the top and the guys did a great job of executing and not fouling and that kind of opened us up in the second halves to play our game. I can't say enough about how the guys played. They really did a great job."
The team is now back to full strength as they head to Detroit to play Detroit Christian Community College on Wednesday, but it has been 25 days since they have played a game, 32 days for most of the team. At this point, they are just happy to play and hoping to overcome a little rust and try to stay undefeated.
"We have a great Christmas break schedule, so we are able to practice a lot over break," Fox said. "It is really great to be able to be in here and get ready. We do a lot of simulation type games where we do five-on-five type stuff so they guys are in good shape even though we haven't played. It will take a minute to get our legs back under us in a game setting, but the guys will be ready to go."
"Really nice," Bibbs said about the chance to get to play in a game gain. "To be able to be back and knowing my guys held it down for us, so that is a blessing."
The Raiders play their next three games on the road. They will return to the Ford Fieldhouse a week from Saturday for their MCCAA Northern division opener against Bay College.
