Men's Basketball | 10/28/2024 12:15:00 PM

The Cloud County Community College men's basketball team is set to start the 2024-2025 season on Friday, November 1 in the Meridian Credit Union Classic in Ottumwa, Iowa. The T-Birds will open the season against Indian Hills Community College at 7 pm Friday, before battling Sauk Valley Community College at 4:30 pm Saturday.

Former Cloud County assistant coach Kyle Pugh takes the reins of the program after spending last season as an assistant coach with the Hutchinson Blue Dragons.

"I'm extremely excited to have been chosen to lead a program with the tradition of the Cloud County men's basketball program," coach Pugh said of the opportunity to become the seventh head men's basketball coach in program history. "I learned a ton as an assistant at Cloud and then last year in Hutchinson as well, just because you're forced to figure out different ways, when it comes to strategies, to put your players in the best position to succeed, and that's something I get extremely excited about is the level of competition that we go up against every single night."

Pugh replaces Devin Kastrup, who led the T-Birds to a 51-44 record, including a 36-36 mark in Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference play, over three seasons before stepping down this past spring to join the coaching staff at Idaho State University.

Pugh previously spent two seasons as an assistant for coach Kastrup. During his time at Cloud County, Pugh helped lead the T-Birds to 30 wins, including 21 conference victories. He assisted in developing practice plans and game plans, provided instruction during on-court coaching and film sessions, prepared written and video scouting reports on opponents, coordinated player development workouts, managed all film operations, and oversaw the community service and work-study program.

"I just got to get hands-on experience and really immerse myself in the college and the community and the men's basketball program," coach Pugh said about his time in Concordia. "I just really fell in love with what Cloud County was about."

Pugh left the Cloud County men's basketball program last year to serve as an assistant coach at Hutchinson for coach Tommy DeSalme. The Blue Dragons finished the 2023-2024 season with a 29-7 overall record, including an appearance in the NJCAA Division I Men's Basketball Elite Eight.

Pugh is a 2018 graduate of the University of Illinois, where he worked as a student manager on the staffs of both John Groce and Brad Underwood. Before coming to Cloud County, Pugh served as a graduate assistant at Jacksonville University where he worked alongside former T-Bird men's basketball coach, Chad Eshbaugh.

"Hopefully I'm able to use my experience learning from all those great coaches and great people and put it all together for our guys and our program this year," coach Pugh shared.

East Carolina University graduate Matt Grantham has joined coach Pugh's staff as the new assistant coach. Prior to joining Cloud County, Grantham spent last year as the head men's basketball coach at Lenoir Community College in Kinston, North Carolina. Grantham previously served as an assistant coach at the University of Mount Olive, Queens University of Charlotte, Catawba Valley Community College, and North Carolina Wesleyan College.

"The assistant position is the most important position to me just because that's somebody that I have to trust and our players have to trust. They have to be about the things we're about on an every day basis. And that's something that stood out to me with coach Grantham. He's led his own program at the junior college level. He's been a head high school coach. He's coached for one of the top Division II programs in the country, and everybody I talked to just raved about his work ethic, his knowledge for the game, how he cares about the guys that he coaches every single day and really pours into them," coach Pugh said about Grantham's hire. "That's what I want our program to be about and I thought our values really aligned there."

Cloud County went 21-11 overall and 15-9 in KJCCC play in 2023-2024. The team made it to the Region 6 tournament quarterfinals for the second straight season before falling to Butler Community College, 77-69.

The T-Birds had the top scoring defense in the conference last year, holding opponents to an average of 62.7 points per game and 37.6 percent shooting, including 31 percent from behind the arc.

Cloud County returns only one key player from last season: 6-foot-1 guard Roy Aviv of Jezreel Valley, Israel. Aviv averaged 12.1 minutes per game in 25 appearances, including nine starts. Aviv averaged 3.3 points per game and shot 41.5 percent from the field and 95.2 percent from the free-throw line.

Redshirt freshman Matthew Garber, a 6-foot-2 guard from Sabetha, Kansas, is also back with the program this season. Garber was a 3A Boys All-State First-Team selection in 2023 by the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association, and a unanimous two-time all-league selection in the Big 7 league for the Sabetha Bluejays.

Transfer additions to the T-Birds are 5-foot-10 point guard Jiovanny Garcia of Chicago, Illinois, 6-foot-6 small forward Fallou Koite of Silver Spring, Maryland, and 6-foot-1 guard Keyon Garrett-Miller of Indianapolis, Indiana. Garcia appeared in 25 games for the Triton University Trojans where he averaged 2.6 points per game and shot 51.1 percent from the field and 43.2 percent from three-point range. Koite comes to Cloud County from Wheeling University where averaged 6.3 minutes and 2.1 points per game in 19 games for the Cardinals. Garrett-Miller was a redshirt last year for the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons, an NCAA Division I member of the Horizon League.

New to the program this year are backcourt recruits Kuel Akot of Manchester, New Hampshire; Nazir Allen of Memphis, Tennessee; Syncere Burnette of Raleigh, North Carolina; Dejuan Graise of Kenosha, Wisconsin; Amare Johnson of Kenosha, Wisconsin; Logan Sullivan of Eudora, Kansas; and Da'Ron Waller of Richmond, Virginia. Frontcourt additions are Takeo Moore of Las Vegas, Nevada; Elidjah Savane of Nanterre, France; and Vuk Zarubica of Podgorica, Montenegro.

"You only get to build it once. It's all about who you bring in and getting to instill our values in them," coach Pugh said of his first year recruits. "We've got guys who do value the things our program cares about a high-level. Once you have that, then you can really start coaching basketball and doing the x's and o's and that sort of thing. I think we've got guys that value the things we talk about every day, which is being the toughest, hardest playing dudes in the country, which is what we're trying to be." 

Cloud County opens the regular season at the Meridian Credit Union Classic at the Hellyer Center in Ottumwa, Iowa November 1-2. The T-Birds begin the year against the host school, Indian Hills Community College, at 7 pm on November 1. The Warriors went 29-6 last season, qualifying for the 2024 NJCAA DI Men's Basketball National Championship in Hutchinson, Kansas. Indian Hills reached the semifinal round before losing to the eventual champions, Barton Community College.

The following day, Cloud County will conclude play in the Meridian Credit Union Classic by meeting up with the Sauk Valley Community College Skyhawks at 4:30 pm. The Skyhawks went 19-12 last season, but ended the year dropping five of their final eight games.

Cloud County hosts Kansas Wesleyan JV for its home opener on Thursday, November 7 at 8 pm.

All Cloud County home games will be broadcast live on the T-Bird Sports Network: https://cloudtbirds.com/sports/2021/2/24/t-bird-sports-network.aspx.