After months of the hardwood court being empty, college basketball season is right around the corner. The countdown to March Madness starts in Nov. when teams tip off their seasons.
For the Cal State Bakersfield basketball program, their season ended in the first round of the Big West tournament against UC Santa Barbara, 66-71. This postseason loss, however, would be the least of the program’s issues.
Rod Barnes made the decision to step down in late Sept.. This led the way for now-interim head coach Mike Scott to try to fill Barnes’s shoes.
“It’s something you can only dream of when you’re an assistant, to get an opportunity to be a head coach… when you get your opportunities, you got to try to make the best of it,” Scott said.
Coach Scott is no stranger to basketball at the Division 1 level. As a player, he attended Fairleigh Dickinson University and made the Northeastern Conference’s pre-season all-conference team. He was averaging 13.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 4.9 assists in his two-year career for FDU.
Mike Scott also has lots of experience on the bench for the `Runners as a coach. He is entering his ninth year with CSUB, where there has been success in producing quality talent during his tenure, along with postseason tournament appearances.
When a head coach is fired, players now have an option to transfer schools, but with this team, the players decided to buy into the culture that they had instilled in the program. The key message within the team was simple: win.
CSUB has the opportunity to win against some quality competition this season when they have to play teams like California, Ole Miss, and Florida State. When talking to players, they all embrace the challenge of playing against those schools and showing how they can hang with Power 4 programs.
“Whether it’s Cal, Ole Miss, or Florida State, we go out there and play as hard as we can and try to get a W…we know what we’re capable of and I believe in my brothers, no matter what team it is,” said Pierre Genesté Jr.
The BW revealed its annual preseason coaches’ poll, and CSUB ranked second-to-last. While these rankings don’t affect the play on the court, they definitely add more fuel to an already hungry Roadrunner squad.
When talking to Junior Forward Ronald Jessamy about the upcoming season, he said, “Upsetting a lot of people…prove the believers right and the doubters wrong.”
Now the team will focus on getting better in the upcoming weeks as they tip off the season on Nov. 1st against Cal Berkeley.
