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Knights Prepare for the Cougar Holiday Classic
Posted: Dec 27, 2022

Knights Prepare for the Cougar Holiday Classic

By Rebecca Plantholt

East Peoria, Ill. — The CCBC Essex Knights travel west to take part in the 41st Annual Illinois Central College Cougar Holiday Classic. This tournament with five NJCAA DII nationally ranked teams participating as well as one team receiving votes. The other teams in the field are South Suburban, Black Hawk-Moline (RV), #13 Bryant & Stratton (WI), hosts #10 Illinois Central, #6 Lake Land, and #1 Kirkwood.

Entering the Cougar Holiday Classic for the first time, Head Coach Mike Seney states, "It's a great tournament field we have here with all the ranked teams. We just want to come in and do nothing differently, just be who we are, and I think who we are is good enough to have a good showing in a tournament this good."

The Knights' first game is scheduled for 5pm CST (6pm EST) on Wednesday, December 28th against #13 Bryant & Stratton (WI). This is a rematch of a 2021-22 NJCAA DII Final Fours where the Knights dominated the Bobcats 99-52. Entering the Cougar Holiday Classic, Bryant & Stratton is 9-4 under a new head coach, averaging 75.8 points per game.

Seney explains the team's mentality as the Knights do final preparations. "Nothing changes. We feel like if we continue to do us, we will be fine." She goes on to say, "We don't really prepare for other teams, we try to figure out what we need to do. We feel like if we take care of what we have to do, we can beat anybody in the country."

Other games on day one of the tournament are Black Hawk-Moline (RV) vs #6 Lake Land at 1pm, South Suburban vs #1 Kirkwood at 3pm, and an intrasquad scrimmage at 7pm for hosts #10 Illinois Central due to transportation issues for an eighth team.

The tournament has a bracket format so opponents and tipoff times of the games on Thursday, December 29th and Friday, December 30th will be determined after the previous day's results. All games of the tournament will be streamed on Illinois Central Cougars Athletic YouTube page or you can follow the CCBC Essex Athletics YouTube page for live tweets from the Knight's games as well as upcoming game information.