With Sinclair Community College\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team entering conference play, coach Jeff Price said he was worried about the opening game at Owens Community College.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what you\u2019re walking into when you play Owens,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n
The Tartan Pride defeated Owens 82-66 on the road, up in Toledo.\u00a0 Price said that Owens has a program that he and his team respects.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you can go to Owens and win it\u2019s a good thing,\u201d Price said.\u00a0 \u201cThey have a great tradition.\u00a0 It\u2019s a really nice school and their coach, Kevin Skaggs, does a really nice job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, Sinclair met Owens in the regional tournament and defeated them.\u00a0 Even though both programs feature new players every year, the two have developed a strong respect for one another, according to Price.<\/p>\n
Sinclair plays in the Ohio Community College Athletic Conference (OCCAC), a seven team league made up of Sinclair, Owens, Cincinnati State, Cuyahoga Community College, Lakeland Community College, Columbus State Community College and Edison Community College.<\/p>\n
Each school plays each other twice, for a total of 14 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited about conference play,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThese games are played at that \u2018next level.\u2019\u00a0 We are playing rivals now, unlike non-conference play.\u00a0 We really don\u2019t have any serious non-conference rivals.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, with three schools being regional rivals (Edison, Cincinnati State and Columbus State), plus the history with Owens and that Price calls Lakeland coach Terry Bowe one of his best friends, all of the conference games mean something.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlus, Cuyahoga gets to recruit in Cleveland,\u201d Price said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd they\u2019ve won a title in the last 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Price said that with his young team, he\u2019s still cautiously optimistic about their future.\u00a0 Most of them, aside from sophomore starting center Colton Everitt, had only high school experience behind them.\u00a0 A typical high school season would be over by now, and Price said \u201cwe still have half of our season to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re asking ourselves, are these guys going to hit a wall?\u201d Price said.\u00a0 \u201cThe one thing that will help is our depth.\u00a0 It\u2019s really our best thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said some coaches work hard on teaching their players what their next opponent will do, and Price admitted he spends some time on that.\u00a0 But he said the goal is for the team to get better \u201cat what we do best.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking to be the best we can be by the end of February,\u201d Price said.\u00a0 \u201cFor the regional tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tartan Pride ranked No. 13 in nation<\/strong><\/p>\n On Tuesday, Jan. 11, the latest NJCAA Top 25 Division II Men\u2019s Basketball Poll was released and the Tartan Pride were ranked for the first time all year, entering at No. 13.\u00a0 The Pride are currently 14-3 overall and 1-0 in conference play.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect this,\u201d Price said.\u00a0 \u201cEspecially to be 13.\u00a0 Usually teams break into the 20s.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the ranking is about the team and their effort.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a credit to what our players are doing,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n Price said that the team doesn\u2019t talk about being ranked and didn\u2019t strive to be ranked, but for the sixth time in Price\u2019s eight years at Sinclair, he has a ranked team.<\/p>\n Assistant coach Marcus Stewart has been ranked three times in his tenure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels good,\u201d Stewart said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s what I\u2019m used to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With Sinclair Community College\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team entering conference play, coach Jeff Price said he was worried about the opening game at Owens Community College. \u201cYou know what you\u2019re walking into when you play Owens,\u201d Price said. The Tartan Pride defeated Owens 82-66 on the road, up in Toledo.\u00a0 Price said that Owens has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1wT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5883"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5898,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions\/5898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}