By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

OREGON CITY,  Ore.– The tone was light and upbeat with plenty of laughs at the Clackamas Community College Men’s Basketball’s practice Wednesday morning.

With Thanksgiving Thursday coming up, it’s hard not to see why.

Cougars Head Coach Clif Wegner knows the excitement himself of the holiday; but he has to remind his team not to eat too much with the Pierce Tournament starting Friday.

“We’ve talked to our kids about how to eat, what to do and we hope they do it,” laughed Wegner.  “Just enjoy their time off and come back Friday.

“That’s a good question it’s something that a young team has to learn how to do.  How to travel, how to stay in the hotel without staying up late and still maintaining your routine and still taking care of yourself like a professional.”

At 2-0, CCC are averaging comfortably over 100 points a game and winning both games by large margins, the team still working on conditioning and chemistry.

“We’re definitely in better shape and our chemistry is a lot better,” said Joey Baldwin.  “We’re getting used to how everyone likes to play.  Learning each other’s roles and figuring out each other is like and playing each other.”

For Wegner, he sees that his team is getting more confident in each other’s and in themselves.

They are shooting, passing and sharing the basketball well he said, but Wegner knows that they’re still some technical things they need to do as a team.

“Cut down the turnovers mainly, that’s the biggest thing.  Stop turning over so much,” he said.  “We want to be more consistent in our defense.  We want to get our players to play a little bit harder and get them into a little better shape.

“This is a process that doesn’t happen overnight.  Junior College teams tend to take a lot of games to where they are playing well together.  It’s not unusual to take 8, 10, 12 even 14 ball games and still be gelling.”

This weekend’s tournament will give the team an opportunity to gel, to get better and to improve against great NWAC team’s like Bellview, Greenriver, and Columbian Basin.

The latter, the Columbian Basin College Hawks, are probably one of the toughest 0-3 teams that the Pierce Tournament has to offer.

And the Cougars are playing them first on Friday afternoon.

The Hawks have played against the First-ranked Team in the NJCAA with the College of Southern Idaho, and the 15^th-ranked Salt Lake Community College.

“They’ve played three really, really good teams,” said Wegner.  “The types of teams that have six, seven, eight Division-I guys already signed so that’s a whole another level in (Junior College).

“Just because they’re 0-3, they’re pretty good.  We’ve just started to get film (on them), so we’ll look at some film, get organized and give our kids a skeleton scouting report.”

As practice wraps-up with the possibility of going to the Nike Outlet store Friday on their way up to Washington was floating around the athlete’s, they know the trip up will bond the team together.

“This is our first road trip so I’m excited,” said Baldwin.  “It’s been like a year since I’ve been out so I’m just excited to be in the hotel, kick it with my teammates and have some fun.”

Tip-off for Clackamas Community College and Columbian Basin is at 4pm at Pierce College in Lakewood, Washington.

For more information about the bracket or times here is the link for the tournament bracket http://www.nwacsports.org/basketball/schedule/2015-16/MBB-Nov27-29_PiC_Thanksgiving-invite.pdf .

TEAM LEADERS (TOP 3 THROUGH 2 GAMES)

Points/Game (Total Points)

Dwight Dew (Fr)                26 (58)

Brayden Massey (Fr)       19 (38)

Joey Baldwin(So)              15 (30)

Total Rebounds/Game (Total Rebounds)

Dew, Dwight(Fr)              9.5 (19)

Baldwin, Joey(So)            6.5 (13)

Gaddis, Parker (Fr)                          6.5  (13)

Steals/Game (Total Steals)

Baldwin, Joey(So)            2.5 (5)

Yeahquo, Jhaylen(Fr)     2.5  (5)

Caillier, Noah (Fr)             2.0 (4)

Assist/game (Total Assist)

Fraizer, Raven (Fr)           6 (12)

Gaddis, Parker (Fr)          6(12)

Cailler, Noah (Fr)              5.5 (11)

Blocks/Game (Total Blocks)

Boumann, Vince (So)     4 (4)

Gibson, Ryun (Fr)             2.5 (5)

Two Tied at 0.50

PHOTO GALLERY (PICTURES BY JEREMY MCDONALD)

Jeremy McDonald is a professional sports journalist in the Salem/Portland area and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalist in Oregon with B.S. degrees from Southern Oregon University in Journalism (2011) and Health/PE (2013).  Got a story idea? Email him at jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com or on Twitter at @J_McDonald81!

Like us on Facebook at Jmcdonaldmedia!