TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Tallahassee Community College men's basketball team is the ninth best team in the land as they gear up to host this weekend's Holiday Classic.
The guys are 15-1, but to get win number sixteen is not going to be easy. Their first opponent, Three Rivers, was Nationally ranked this season, and Friday's foe Northeast Mississippi? They played in last year's National Tournament.
That schedule is by design, as head coach Mark White said it will get the guys going before Conference play tips off January 7th.
"Your next 14 games are going to be really, really difficult games with great opponents," he said at practice Tuesday. "My thing is, I hope that we do what we did last year and then what our teams have normally done and that that we really improve a lot over the next few weeks and then into February."
The Tallahassee women are also in action this weekend, and like the guys, are ranked Nationally heading into the Classic. The Eagle ladies, who have won ten straight games, sit at 11th in the country, and are using this weekend to shake off the Christmas Break rust as they gear up for Panhandle play.
With a win over Florida State College on Thursday, the ladies would have the second best start in school history, so there's a lot of hype, but the Eagles are just looking forward to playing ball.
"We talk a little bit about the rankings, but we haven't focused on it a whole lot because we're just trying to get prepared for the next game," said head coach Q Bedell. "That's kind of how we approach it and right now it's done us good. That one loss has really been a good teaching point for us all year, and we're still using that one loss as a teaching point to get to the next step."
A Tallahassee doubleheader will close the schedule both days – 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 2:45 and 4:30 p.m. Friday.
