By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

OREGON CITY, Ore.–  Playing shorthanded is no easy task, but the Clackamas Community College Men’s Basketball team did just that when they wrapped up their non-conference play with only nine of 12 players playing  during the three-day Clackamas Community College Holiday Invitational.

“I thought the kids did a great job.  I felt like we played hard, really hard, for all three ball games,” said Cougars Head Coach Clif Wegner.  “We played these games with only nine guys suited down, (and) that we were able to step up shorthanded and pull together, play some people in different positions a little bit, more than we normally do.”

For Parker Gaddis, he knows that being shorthanded like this is a taste of the grind the NWAC League Season can be like from this past tournament.

Gaddis said that if they carry that energy into league, from the experiences from not just the CCC Holiday Invite, but from the whole preseason in general, then they’ll find a way when times gets rough in league play.

“What we’ve learned is that it comes down to how bad you want it and how bad each person is willing to play,” he said.  “I think that’s going to be really good entering league because they’re going to be games when nothing is falling and it seems like nothing is going right but you just got to find a way.”

With only two days to prepare for their Northwest Conference Opener versus Southwestern Oregon Community College, Cougars head Coach Clif Wegner enjoys the short turnaround.

“It’s good that we have a short turnaround I think,” said Wegner.  “We’re playing well, we’re positive, we’re playing hard, things are going pretty good.  You got these three then you got basically two days now to get ready for a league opener Saturday with SWOCC here.

“So we’re going to give our kids a little time off tomorrow.  Watch some flim, shoot a little bit; but we’re going to try to get our legs back for a day or two and get ready for league.”

Southwestern Oregon sits at 6-7 and have lost four in a row entering Saturday’s league opener and are hungry to break that losing streak.

Wegner admits in modest that in the NWAC, everyone knows everyone’s secrets and all that.  You just have to execute better during gametime.

“You just got to be focus on playing together and really executing well,” said Wegner.  “(You got to) set your screens better, get your angles better, get your spacing better.  You just got to be better offensively and we’ll continue to do that.”

Tip off is at 4pm.