Editor’s note: City Times Media’s Vince Outlaw and Joe Panek will be adding play-by-play and color commentary to all men’s home games this fall. To watch the video, click here. To listen to the audio feed, click here. To read a rough transcript generated by otter.ai, click here.
The San Diego City College Knights men’s basketball team opened Pacific Coast Athletic Conference play with a 99-67 trouncing of the Grossmont College Griffins at Harry West Gym on Dec. 13.
After a roller coaster weekend that saw the Knights (10-3) meet their pre-season aspirations and defeat defending state champion and No. 4-ranked Fullerton College – only to lose the next night to No. 12-ranked West Los Angeles – Head Coach Mitch Charlens was pleased to see the energy of his team.
“We had a huge game against Fullerton,” he said. “They knocked us off last year, and it was their ring ceremony Friday night and our guys were really locked into that. We beat them at their place, and then we had a huge drop off the next day. So it was good to see this effort after that.”
That effort and an overwhelming size difference between City and Grossmont was evident from the opening tip. The first 4-of-6 field goals for the Knights were dunks, with many more to follow, as the team raced out to a 12-2 lead in the first four minutes of the game.
Defense was top of mind for the Knights and it resulted in 29 Grossmont turnovers, which City turned into 37 points. Converting opponent miscues into points is natural for this team, according to guard Al Green, who led the team in both scoring (20) and steals (5).
“When we get the turnover, we don’t like to set stuff up,” the 6-foot-3 sophomore said. “We have guys 1-5 that can bring up the ball. We have guys that could dunk 1-5 also. We just like to push the ball, get it up the court and try to make the game as fun as possible.”
Forward Dexter Stratton, who contributed 15 points coming off the bench for fellow big-men Dillon Cubit and Alex Crawford, relished the opportunity to play on a team as deep as this year’s Knights.
“I know we have a lot of good players … pretty much everyone on the roster can play,” Stratton said. “Playing behind guys like that helps me but also just mixing in different lineups, being able to play with different people.”
City doesn’t have much time to prepare for its next conference opponent, Cuyamaca College, although Green seems to have the game plan already mapped.
“We just got to focus on things we can control,” Green said of the game set for Dec. 15, “just stay on defense. Come into the game with the same mentality every single game. Don’t think nobody’s lower than us and just stay on our grind. Keep going.”
