After three quick wins to open the season, injuries and eligibility issues have shackled the Mississippi Delta Community College Trojan basketball team. Two lopsided losses, 92-79 on the road at Baton Rouge Community College and a home loss, 90-69 to Jones College have the Trojans just a game over .500 at 3-2. A home Wednesday, November 15, matchup against the Tougaloo College JV team will either right the ship or even put them at .500. Head Coach Derrick Fears is ready for the Thanksgiving break to get his team back on track and healthy.
“We hit a two game skid but everything is all right,” Coach Fears said. “I call it the war of attrition with us not having enough bodies to make adjustments. Our one big guy got in foul trouble against Jones and they were just much, much bigger than us.”
First year big man, Daivion Traylor, had been averaging 14 points and 13 rebounds per game but foul trouble sat him down early and he only contributed five points and four rebounds in the loss.
“We depend on his scoring. We got nothing from the interior due to that and our guards didn’t shoot three’s very well. That was the difference in that ballgame. We’ve only got nine players playing,” Coach Fears said. “I added two walk-ons to help us. They were actually redshirt guys and I added them on the roster. We lost one kid (freshman Taylor Flakes) that would have helped us but his academic hours were messed up this summer with the new rules. And we had another kid (L.J. Duckworth) who didn’t come back and had moved to Texas.”
Coach Fears also noted that the team hasn’t been shooting well and with the loss of their big man against Jones, that doubled down on the loss. After the Tougaloo College JV game, the Trojans are off until November 27th when they travel to Northeast Mississippi Community College and then to Northwest Community College on Thursday, November 30. They’ll open December hosting Baton Rouge Post Grad on Thursday, December followed by hosting Southwest on Saturday, December 9.
“We hit it hard after Thanksgiving. We are back to back to back. Three out of four tough ones when we come back. Northeast is still undefeated. It will be a test for us when we come back. Hopefully, we’ll get our point guard back and hopefully after Christmas break we’ll get (JeQuann) Roberson, (Adam Luphai) Dalil and (Chanceton) Woodall back. That will help us with some depth and rotation opportunities. Right now, when we take our 6-foot, 9-inch guy out we are small."
