No. 2 Ranked Flyers Host Rockhill Community Christian in Final Preseason Game

The Sandhills Community College basketball team entertains Rockhill Community Christian College (SC) on Wednesday at 7 p.m.  at The Hangar in its final warm-up for the 2023-24 season.

"This scrimmage is really much-needed," Flyers' Head Coach Mike Apple said on Monday. "I think if we improve as much as we did from the scrimmage last Tuesday against Fayetteville Tech to the ones we had on Saturday, we'll be in a good spot to open the season."

Ranked No. 2 in the NJCAA Division III preseason poll that was released on Monday, the Flyers open the regular season in Richmond, VA at the Statesman Classic on November 3 and 4 with games against Winston Salem Christian and host Richard Bland.

Eight teams participated in Saturday's event hosted by Brunswick CC. In one hour games with a moving clock, the Flyers defeated Catawba Valley CC and dropped a pair of close games to the Brunswick A and B squads.

"I thought we got better," Apple said. "We wanted to correct a lot of the mistakes we made last week against Fayetteville Tech and I thought we addressed those pretty well. We did a much better job on the boards on Saturday and have a chance to be a solid rebounding team.

"Our offense is still turning the ball over more than we need to. Adapting to the speed of the game is a new thing for a lot of these guys. There is a speed of the game and then there is a Sandhills speed of the game. Our guys are still adapting to the fact that we want to play fast all of the time not some of the time."

Only four of the Flyers 21 players that began practices last month were members of the 30-4 squad that lost to Brookdale CC in the national championship game last March. Freshman Amarie Liburd will be out indefinitely with a broken bone in his foot and freshman Chris Rhodes is day-to-day with an injury and unlikely to see action on Wednesday. Several other players are likely to be redshirted when the final roster is set.

"We have some really unselfish guys that are anxious to get galvanized as a team," Apple said. "What we expect of them as Sandhills basketball players is still very new, but they're adjusting.

"I really think you're going to see a lot of improvement, a lot of guys developing as the season goes. Whatever we are at the beginning could be completely different at the end."

Brookdale CC (NJ), the 2023 national champion, is ranked No.1 in the preseason poll followed by the Flyers and the other top five finishers in the tournament, i.e. Rochester Tech, Northampton CC (PA) and Northern Essex (MASS).

C. Bergmann