Men's Basketball
With the regular season nearing its end, the Gillette College basketball teams picked up big conference wins Saturday afternoon against Western Wyoming Community College.
The return of Gillette College basketball brought a big home crowd and a big win as the Pronghorns move to 5-1 on the season with a 20-point win over Lake Region State College.
Reaching the Division I level of college basketball was never the end goal for Tarig Eisa. It was just a stepping stone. The ultimate goal for the Gillette College forward is to become a professional basketball player, a journey that has already taken him all over North America.
Mason Archambault is returning to South Dakota to join the Division I basketball ranks. The Gillette College sophomore, who played prep hoops in Rapid City, South Dakota, announced Tuesday that he has committed to the University of South Dakota. Archambault called it a dream come true and said USD was the school he wanted to play for “since I came to Gillette.”
Gillette College sophomore Bradley Akhile will be playing Division I basketball next year at the University of the Incarnate Word. The 6-foot-7 forward from Houston will return to his home state, as his commitment takes him to San Antonio, Texas.
One of the biggest keys to successful junior college basketball is buy-in, and the Gillette College men used that buy-in to return to Region IX and national prominence. The 2018-19 season was an anomaly during coach Shawn Neary’s tenure, as the team went 15-16 and lost out in the first round of the region tournament. The Pronghorns had averaged 30 wins the previous five seasons, including a NJCAA Final Four appearance. Neary reloaded last offseason while returning two experienced sophomores and advanced to the Region IX semifinals to finish the season 26-6.
The Gillette College men’s basketball team came out of the gates firing in the Region IX tournament semifinals Friday night. The Pronghorns jumped out to a 13-4 lead, but then No. 15-ranked Western Wyoming Community College took over. WWCC had a 47-34 lead at halftime, and although the Pronghorns charged back to within two points in the second half, the Mustangs pulled away again for an 87-74 win in Sterling, Colorado, at the Region IX tournament.
Gillette College’s 6-foot-4 forward Isaac Mushila wasn’t the biggest guy on the court Thursday. But he was by far the most effective in the paint in leading the Pronghorns to a quarterfinal win in the Region IX Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Gillette College Men Host First Round