Mens Basketball Brings In Young Talent

EAST PEORIA — The ICC mens basketball program brought in a
lot of young talent from around the local area. This year freshmen filled the roster, with a total of 11 freshmen and only 4 sophomores.

But leadership didn’t seem to be a problem when they tipped-off against the Olivette Nazarene’s JV squad. “There are certain JV ball clubs that you know that it’s going to be 45 to 25 point win. Teams like Olivette and Illinois Wesleyan, those are very good ball clubs and it’s not going to be a guaranteed win,” Coach Tony Wysinger said.

They came out of the gates sprinting, going on an early 9-0 run in the early minutes of the first-half. Olivette didn’t back down though, as they went in to half-time trailing only 36-35.

But Coach Wysinger got his men back on track in a halftime conversation, where
 he pushed the
 message of defensive communication. “I told the guys they can shoot [and] they can play, but
I think it took them the first half of the game to recognize that these guys can play the game [too].
I think once we talked about what we had to talk about at halftime they finally figured it out,” Coach Wysinger said.

The Cougars pulled away late in the 
second half, and went on to defeat Olivette
 by a score of 71-59. When asked about expectations, Coach Wysinger continued to comment on defensive communication. “One of my pet peeves is talking on defense. I think if we do a better job on defensive transition, we will be able to do even more,” Coach Wysinger said.