Arabs tip off annual Holiday Classic today
Starting this afternoon the Imperial Valley College men’s basketball team will again be hosting its ninth annual Holiday Classic tournament at the DePauli Center.
The tournament will feature three games a day with the tournament ending Friday afternoon. The host Arabs will play in the last game on the schedule each day.
The price of the admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students with identification, senior citizens and children ages 5 to 12 daily and admission is good for all three games that day.
“We want to give local fans a better chance to see us so we took the later game time and Friday is get-away-day for the visiting teams so we start earlier that day,” Arabs coach Andrew Robinson said.
The Holiday Classic will be a round-robin style tournament with no team standings, however each team will be awarded one representative on the all-tournament team.
Joining IVC (3-9) in this year’s tournament is Pasadena City College (4-8), Miramar College (9-4), College of the Desert (1-10), Los Angeles Harbor College (3-10) and CETY’s University from Mexicali.
“The tournament schedule is set before the season starts so it’s hard to know where teams are at when they join,” Robinson said. “Records are hard at this point to judge the teams by and we’re looking forward to competitive games.”
Based on their 2016 record to date, the Miramar College Jets appear to be one of the top teams to watch as they feature the fifth ranked defense in the state, allowing just 54 points-per-game while using a balanced scoring attack to average 76 points per game.
“We scrimmaged them before the season and they are the real-deal,” Robinson said.
The Holiday Classic will be a homecoming of sorts for Jets coach Nick Gehler who took over as IVC men’s coach in 2000 and spent five seasons in the Valley before becoming athletic director and head coach at Miramar.
Worth noting is that Pasadena City comes into the tournament averaging 79 points-pergame on 48 percent shooting from the floor and also averages 34 rebounds per game.
Two other teams are also represented in the California Community College Athletic Associations statistical leaders with College of the Desert averaging 41 rebounds per games which ranks them ninth in the state and L.A. Habor is shooting 72 percent from the free throw line good for 14th in the state.
IVC is off to its best start in the past two seasons and enters its tournament fresh off an 86-79 win over the Cerro Coso Coyotes last week.
IVC opened the season with an 81-68 win over COD after going winless last season.
“It was just the start of the season but it was a very big win and to get that monkey off our backs quickly set a positive tone for this season,” Robinson said. “We are a whole new team … last year doesn’t matter, it’s all new memories.”
For the Arabs, their only returnee from last season is sophomore Marquis Golden who is leading the team in scoring, averaging 15 points and hitting nearly 80 percent of his free throw attempts.
Freshman Emanuelle Bradbury is averaging 13 points and seven rebounds.
Imperial Valley players include the Arabs’ other two sophomores, Central Union High graduate Luis Vizcaino and Southwest High graduate Brandon Martinez who were in the program last season as redshirts.
Together they are averaging about 16 points and 12 rebounds per game.
In addition, the Arab roster features freshman Rick Cesena from Southwest as well as Calexico High graduate Javier Durazo who is nursing an injury and may be forced to redshirt this season.
“The majority of the team is freshmen and you can imagine the learning curve but you can see them coming together and we should be ready for conference next month,” said Robinson whose team last season struggled off the court. “This is a great group and all of them passed all their classes so no academic problems to worry about.”
The DePauli Center snack bar will be open throughout the tournament. Proceeds will go to the athletic department.