Titans Gearing Up For Weekend Basketball Games
By Space Coast Daily // January 25, 2013
Both Teams Face Broward Squads On Saturday
BREVARD COUNTY, FL – Brevard Community College’s men’s and women’s basketball teams face common opponents on Saturday in uncommon locations.
BCC’s men, 18-4 overall and 4-0 and in first place in the Florida College System Activities Association Southern Conference host Broward College (13-8, 1-3) at 2 p.m. in the Melbourne Campus gym.
BCC’s women, 2-19 overall and 0-6 in conference, travel to Davie to play Broward’s women (5-13, 1-5) at 2 p.m.
For the men the Broward game is the second of three conference match ups in six days. BCC beat conference foe and archrival Indian River State College 69-52 at home on Wednesday and travels to Lake Worth on Monday for a rematch with Palm Beach State.
BCC upset Palm Beach a week ago, 73-66, handing the visitors their first defeat in 21 games. To that end Monday should be a grinder.
BCC men’s head coach Jeremy Shulman, who saw his team rally from an abysmal start against Indian River — just seven points in the first 11 minutes and 36 seconds — knows it cannot afford a repeat against Broward and certainly not Palm Beach.
But he and his team are taking things one at a time.
“We now turn our attention to Broward,” Shulman said. “They have a lot of talent and are very dangerous. It’s important that we focus on that game and not look ahead to Palm Beach.
“Broward has three kids who can put up 25 points at any time including last season’s state-leading scorer Craig Brown. We are still a little banged up so hopefully we’ll get a few guys back for Saturday.”
To that end BCC has gotten contributions from new sources, the most recent the 29-point effort from freshman Jordan Smith who was the catalyst in the victory over Indian River State.
Also, freshman Julian Adams stepped in to provide valuable minutes as sophomore center Gary Gaskins sat out the Indian River game with a sore shoulder. And as per usual, the sophomore duo of co-captains Nyles Evans and Addison Spruill has been steady at the helm as have freshmen Juri Gunjina and Ben Patrick.
As for the women, head coach Renee Bellamy took some positives from her team’s 16th straight loss on Wednesday. Despite only scoring 18 points in the first half against conference-leading St. Petersburg College, BCC played a stronger second half losing 66-51 after being throttled 75-32 at St. Petersburg on Jan. 9.
She hopes that effort eradicated the disappointment of relinquishing a late 12-point lead in a 77-69 loss at Miami Dade last Saturday.
“We head into Saturday’s game at Broward knowing we can compete,” Bellamy said. “Now we need to convince ourselves that we can win.
“The players certainly have not written off the season and neither have the coaches. We still have the opportunity to take some positives from all this and we need to take advantage of them.”
BCC does face the challenge of once again playing without sophomore co-captain and leading scorer Shaneece Stephens who is recovering from a knee injury. But Stephens’ teammates have stepped up and Bellamy once again will look to sophomore co-captain Kasie Berry, sophomore Shante Stevenson and freshman Tomoriya Hamm to provide leadership and offensive production.
Beyond Broward, BCC’s women travel to Lake Worth to play Palm Beach State at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and then to Fort Pierce to play Indian River State at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 2. The BCC women’s next home game is 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6 against Miami Dade.
Admission to BCC home games is free.
