A strong season for the UC Clermont men’s basketball team ended on a winning note, just not in the game they had hoped it would.
UC Clermont dropped their opening-round game to Vermont Tech 108-100 on Sunday, March 8 in a contest head coach Steve Ellis knew would be a difficult one.
“They answered the call every single time that we made a run at them,” Ellis said. “We knew it was going to be a track meet. We knew they were going to hit some shots early and we came back and we had it within three with two minutes to go. They came down and hit a couple of clutch shots, give them credit. We had to foul them and they made free-throws.”
UC Clermont trailed 93-90 after a Kort Justice three-point shot with 2:27 left. Vermont Tech built the lead back up to nine points twice over the final few minutes of the game.
Justice led all scorers with 31 points. Greg Marsh added 21, with Clay Spivey chipping in 17.
One day later, UC Clermont took on Berkeley in a consolation game. The Cougars faced Berkeley (NY) in that contest, a program that had won four straight national titles from 2014-2015 through the 2017-2018 season.
The Cougars rolled, using 26-point outbursts from Justice and West Clermont grad John Aicholtz to pick up a 92-79 win.
“I was glad we were able to come back the next day and beat a Berkeley team that had won the national title four of the last five years,” Ellis said. “It was really tough. Our guys had high expectations going into that Vermont Tech game, and they were pretty down after. We had to regroup, refocus and rededicate ourselves to prove who we ware. We wanted to go out and show everyone that was in the tournament that we belonged.”
The win ended one of the more successful seasons in recent UC Clermont history. Ellis was proud of how the team handled itself on and off the court.
“I’m extremely happy with how the season went,” Ellis said. “I’m not sure it could have gone much better other than winning the national championship. The effort that our guys gave every single game, every single practice to coming down to clutch time in games and pulling out the victories to doing the off the court stuff…I couldn’t be any happier.”
Off the court, UC Clermont had seven players finish with a GPA of at least 3.0 in the first semester. Three players (West Clermont’s Jay Tiemeyer, Georgetown’s Jackson Gregory and Alec Kagan) were named USCAA Academic All-Americans, while two others (Aicholtz and Justice) were named athletic first-team all-Americans by the USCAA. Ellis was named the USCAA’s Coach of the Year.
Kagan is the team’s lone senior. Ellis said his biggest impact came as a leader.
“He started off and on this year and he started off and on last year,” Ellis said. “When he was injured for the first part of the year, he was on the bench during games and during practices, he was a big factor in why we were successful. He may not have had the stats, but he certainly helped us.”
That continuity should help the Cougars next season, according to Ellis.
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We should have our whole starting lineup returning and then some,” Ellis said. “That’s the first time we’ve had that since I’ve been here. We’re anxiously looking forward to that, add some more talent and make another run next year.”
As is the case pretty much everywhere else in the world at the moment, the novel coronavirus pandemic has thrown a wrench into UC Clermont’s plans. Recruiting is on hold at the moment, according to Ellis.
“It’s very difficult,” Ellis said. “We’ve been texting back and forth with some of the recruit’s we’re real close to signing. We want to get them into our gym, get them into the fold but we’re not able to do that. We’re on hold right now. We’re hoping that near the end of April we’ll be able to do something, for our sake and for those kids’ sake. They want to know what their future plans are and we want to lock them in. Everyone is on a holding pattern right now.”