Claim Jumpers receive No. 8 playoff seed, will face Contra Costa
The past week has not been kind to the Claim Jumpers. After winning their final conference game over Fresno City College to secure the No. 8 seed in the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) men’s basketball playoffs and a firstround bye, Columbia College (21-7, 9-5) has been snakebit.
Multiple starters are out with COVID, according to Columbia College head coach Rob Hoyt, and nagging injuries have plagued many more after a long and physical regular season.
To top things off, two days out from their game against the No. 9 Contra Costa Comets (Saturday Feb. 25 at 3 p.m.), a snowstorm blanketed the Mother Lode region. Forced out of their gym and off campus, Hoyt organized an impromptu practice out in the falling snow on the outdoor basketball courts behind Sonora Elementary School.
In the face of countless roadblocks, Hoyt said the team’s hard work from their first day at Columbia this summer has prepared them for what lies ahead.
“It’s going to be February 25th on Saturday. You go all the way back to August 25th, we have got plenty of time together and habits that we have created, and you are always going to fall back on that training,” Hoyt said. “If the training was right, we will be fine on Saturday, regardless of the circumstances that we can’t control with the situation going on this week.”
The team quickly ran through the sets they foresee Contra Costa running Saturday, then shot free throws on the stiff double rims of the playground court. When they missed, they ran.
After their final lap, sophomores Aurrion Harris and Caleb Chiang bombarded Hoyt — who had run alongside them — with snowballs, hastily assembled on the run. For Oakdale-raised freshman guard Kobe Nunes, it was the first time seeing snow come down in person.
Depending on how Saturday’s
game pans out, this could have been the Claim Jumpers final practice. The jovial atmosphere is emblematic of how close the team has grown, Nunes said.
“I love the guys. It’s been a great season; my favorite season by far,” Nunes said. “It has been so much fun. The bonds we have all created have been a blessing, really.”
The Comets and Claim Jumpers have clashed twice this season, and both games created fireworks. The Claim Jumpers defeated the Comets in overtime 80-74 in their second game of the season at the Tony Costello Tip-off Classic at Las Positas.
After giving up a corner 3-pointer to go down 68-65 and being forced to foul with 10 seconds on the clock, sophomore Aurrion Harris immediately gathered his teammates for a huddle near halfcourt.
A made free throw would have iced the game, but the Comets’ Evan Thompson missed on the one-and-one. The Claim Jumpers brought the ball down the court and found sharpshooter Caleb Chiang who banged a 3-pointer to tie things up. Columbia
won in overtime.
The Claim Jumpers fell to the Comets, again in overtime, when the two teams met later in the season in a narrow, 5958 loss.
“We want revenge — we lost last time in overtime at their
place,” Nunes said of Saturday’s game. “Now they are up here, so it should be really competitive, should be lots of fun. I am ready for it.
“First round of the playoffs, get a home win, move onto the next.”
It’s uncommon for two teams in different conferences to face each other three times in one season, according to Hoyt. Having seen how Contra Costa plays, and vice versa, Hoyt said he believes the game will be a tightly contested one.
“It is a really interesting matchup in that regard,” Hoyt said. “I think both teams probably felt they should have won the game they lost, both games went to overtime, so a really interesting dynamic you don’t see very often.”
The Comets are led by point guard Miles Lewis out of Sacramento
High School, who averages 13.9 points per game on 51 percent from the field, 38.5 percent from deep and 75 percent from the free-throw line.
Lewis had 11 points and 13 points, respectively, in each of their games against Columbia, but his ability to make tough shots in the mid-range can cause big problems for opposing defenses.
“He is the best that I have seen, the best mid-range shot maker in Northern California — he is elite at it,” Hoyt said. “He can take two dribbles, pull up and shoot a very high percentage. He is very quick, he is good with both hands, he’s got good vision … he’s a very good point guard.”
With a tough loss to Porterville in which the Claim Jumpers were battered on the offensive glass, Hoyt said crashing the defensive boards will be imperative to keep a talented and big Contra Costa frontcourt from creating extra possessions.
“They have those two big dudes down there, and they are big. We have to make sure that those shots that are being taken and are missed aren’t a bunch of putbacks,” Hoyt said. “That could really hurt us, when you have a really good sequence on defense and it’s negated by a putback, it’s pretty deflating.”
Four teams will advance out of the 24-team regional playoff bracket and into the state tournament. Looking forward, that path will be a bit more difficult for Columbia than the rest of their peers.
As the No. 8 seed, the Claim Jumpers share a bracket section with reigning CCCAA champions and No. 1 seed City College of San Francisco (25-3, 13-1). Should they advance out of their second-round game, they will have to go through the reigning champions to make the state tourney.
City College of San Francisco is 19-1 since Dec. 3, with their only loss coming to No. 7 seed Chabot College 89-87 Feb. 1.
For Hoyt and the Claim Jumpers, matchups are the least of their problems. For the time being, Hoyt said, the team is focused on getting healthy and taking on a talented Comets team Saturday afternoon.
“At some point, if you do it right, you are going to play someone really good,” Hoyt said. “Whether it’s early in the tournament, late in the tournament, middle of the tournament — you are going to play someone really good. We don’t duck anybody.”