Grand Rapids, MI – Grand Rapids Community College’s men’s basketball team opens up conference play on the road against #5 ranked Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

At 7-2 overall, GRCC’s Raiders are hardly having a rough season, but KVCC’s Cougar squad enters tomorrow afternoon’s game a cool 11-1 with their sole loss coming by way of Henry Ford Community College on December 15^th.

Both teams are looking to start 2013 with a win and know that the outcome of the game will have a tremendous impact on the rest of their season. 

KVCC boasts a 5-1 record when playing at home this season while the Raiders’ record on the road is 2-3. 

However, under Coach Carnegie, GRCC is 2-0 against KVCC, but struggles in the regular season against nationally ranked opponents having lost each of the five games played in two seasons.

While those trends are interesting, they’re certainly not indicative of tomorrow’s outcome.  

If either team has an immediate advantage, then it would be in depth. In that case, KVCC has that edge over the Raiders as they return five sophomores from last year’s team while adding two sophomores to the mix.  Combined with the ten freshmen on the roster, the Cougars will have a level of depth GRCC simply can’t match.

The Raiders have no returning players from their 2011-12 season and will begin the second half of the 2012-13 season with only 9 players.

While light on bodies, GRCC isn’t low on talent.  They’ve got nine young men that can play.

Freshman Deontae Hudson leads GRCC is scoring averaging 17 points per game and posts a second best in rebounds with 6.9.  Kevin Badger and Alex Mustert trail averaging 12.5 and 8.6 respectively.  In addition to his 12.5 points per game average, Badger leads the team in assists with 5.4 while Mustert leads his team in rebounds with an average of 7 per game.

The cougars are led in scoring by sophomore Dequan Mitchell-Fields who is averaging 14 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.  Freshman Devonte Hughes is also making a name for himself with a nearly averaging a double-double with 13.2 points and 9.5 rebounds per game.

With a #5 ranking in NJCAA DII KVCC is going to have to battle hard against GRCC’s Raiders and each team they encounter as they push through the regular season.  GRCC stands to pick up some serious attention should their young team grind out the upset win over a top ten team early in the regular season.

GRCC has everything to gain, and KVCC has much to lose as the two teams battle for their first conference win of the year.

The contest is slated to start at 3:00PM following the conclusion of the women’s baseketball games at KVCC’s Fieldhouse.