Bulldogs are Ready for New Basketball Season
by Byron Franklin, STAFF WRITER
With a new season approaching, the Tougaloo College Bulldog basketball team is conditioning for another successful year.
The Bulldogs finished the season with a record of 18-11, a conference title, a national tournament berth, and player accolades for All Conference recipients Kevin McCoy and Darrius Simmons.
Simmons has also been named national player of the week in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
The Bulldogs lost a few players from last year, including Dominique Brown, Brandon Caston, Joshua Marks, LaDrian “laylu” Davis, and William Jones.
“You should be looking for pretty much the same thing you saw last year in terms of winning,” said Derrick Calvert, 21, a senior, English major from Horn Lake. “We had a lot of gaps in our team last year and this year’s team has fixed those gaps.”
Kevin McCoy, 21, a senior physical education major from Magnolia agrees with Calvert.
“We are the same team with a better attitude and more aggression, the losses have put us in a hole but with this recruiting class we have fixed them,” McCoy said. “From the recruiting class, the coaching staff selected local talents including freshmen Justin Griffin from Terry High School, DeMorris Summer from Provine High School and Sean Johnson from Lanier High School.
Head coach Lafayette Stribling agrees with his two captains.
“Our recruiting class, which consists of German Cable, Sean Johnson, DeMorris Summers, Terrence Benford, and Charles Mitchell, will help us and our winning attitude,” Stribling said.
“The team should look at Kevin McCoy and Kendrick Harris with the help from the cast of Jermaine Hodges, Derrick Calvert and Kendrick White wee should make up for our losses.
“We have a lot of hard games coming up with two Division 1 teams in Southern Baton Rouge and Alcorn State University but our conference games are our tough ones,” Stribling said.
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