MCC Notes: Looking Back and Ahead to the Final Two weeks of the Season

With last week’s blizzard, McHenry County College’s basketball teams experienced a full week away from game action including three days of not having the ability to even practice.

The men and women's team lost thursday night, today they hope to join the win column in their final home game against the College of Lake County.

Both teams are struggling through their 2010-11 campaigns and the season winding toward the conclusion of the regular season next weekend, the time off would be thought of as a blessing.

For women’s coach Pam Mason, she thought the break has its’ advantages and disadvantages.

“Any time off especially during conference time when you are playing two or three games a week helps,” Mason said. “It can also hurt though because we are an average shooting team and sometimes below average. Just being out of the gym and not being able to work on our fundamentals, it hurts.”

On the men’s side, coach Jason Robinson wishes that his team didn’t get a break from the practice at all.

“I think this group needs the practice more than the time off,” Robinson said. “A lot of times this late in the season, you want to take it easy in practice but the last two weeks, we have to go hard playing six games and with the inexperience and all the new kids on the floor. They just need reps and need to continue to improve.”

The team plays their final two home games this week before finishing with three on the road next week.

This Week's Schedule: MCC will host the College of Lake County for Senior Day Saturday afternoon.

Mason said her women’s team needs to continue having the same intensity all the time.

“The first time around when we played Prairie State, we played them tough and I think they were surprised by that,” Mason said. “They will come ready for us and Lake County, we had a good win against them at their place but I don’t want to get too confident and expect to win here. I tell them every night that you have to bring your “A” game in order to win and can’t just assume because things are going easy early that the reminder of the game will be that way.”

The men’s team will look to avenge a two-point loss at Lake County and an 11-point loss at Prairie State.

Robinson said that one big thing for his team was a win over Elgin on Saturday where the Scots finally won their first conference game and won a close game as well.

“I don’t know how many times this year we have come out of a timeout when we are up one or two with 20 seconds to go and need one stop and we finally got it against Elgin,” Robinson said. “Will Bush hit a couple free-throws that put us up by three. It was a nice win for us.”

On Saturday, the men will begin the doubleheader at 1 p.m. followed by the women at 3 p.m.