Hillsborough 67, State College of Florida 63

   Feb.22, 2012. The Hillsborough Community College men‘s basketball team is making a late season push for the Suncoast Conference title and a suitable seeding in the conference playoffs. Coach Byron Samuels stated “We can beat everybody in our conference, but we have to play well, we’re a young team and our margin of error is not very great and a lot of teams can make mistakes and have success, we’re not one of those teams. Our margin for error is very, very small, we need to do a lot of things right in order for success. “A team that is led by five sophomores, two that have returned from the 2010-2011 season and also playing six freshmen has gone through some growing pains posting a 7-14 mark.

   On the current roster four players are being actively pursued by four-year programs. Forward Quentin Bastian who is 9th in the NJCAA in rebounds (11.0 rebound per game), Dan Kusnyer who is averaging 9.6 points per game, Patrick Haugabook who averages 6.3 points per game, and 6 foot 10 inch center Alassane Ka who has been sidelined this season with a knee injury.

   Samuels says his team has responded but not for long periods of time “We play well for 20 minutes, we play well for 25 minutes, we haven’t played well for 40 minutes. Practice has been good, practice has been spirited and guys want to have success, and the guys want to win so no one’s hanging their head. We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves, we’re trying to do more things to help us win and have success. In every game we’ve lost we have been one or two plays away from where we want to be.”

   He also tells his team, even though they would like to win, that they need to do things the right way, not cut corners; and if you’ve done your absolute best and it’s not enough than it’s not enough. What he feels it will take for it to be a positive season “It would be a successful year for our sophomores if they could stay on track to graduate, if they could find four year schools that offer them scholarships, and get on a little bit of a run basketball wise where they could walk away feeling like we did turn the corner from a basketball standpoint, for our freshmen they are playing to position themselves for future scholarships and graduation, but we are all playing because we love the game, we love to compete, and we care enough about each other that we are going to give our absolute best for one another. We have six games left, if we can win the majority of those games moving forward I would consider it a success, on top of the non-basketball things.”