Wednesday’s game is scheduled for 7 PM Eastern time, and it will be streamed live on EmeraldCoastTV.com
The Tallahassee Community College men’s basketball team will take on Indian River State in the quarterfinals of the NJCAA Region VIII Tournament on Wednesday evening. Indian River State enters the tournament as the number one seed but lost to TCC in the season opener.
The tournament will be played on the campus of Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, Florida. NJCAA Region VIII is comprised of junior college teams throughout the state of Florida. Winning the tournament leads to automatic qualification to the national tournament in Hutchinson, Kansas later this month.
Making it to the tournament means the Eagles are a step closer to playing for their first State Championship since 2011. They secured an at-large bid after going 21-9 in the regular season, in their first year under head coach Rick Cabrera.
"First and foremost, we are excited to have this opportunity to compete in the state tournament," said Cabrera in a statement released by TCC. "We are looking forward to playing against one of the best teams in the country. They have consistently displayed a high-power offense on top of great coaching by Charlie Wilson and his staff."
TCC is currently on a four-game winning streak, during which they defeated nationally ranked Chipola and Northwest Florida State, who will also compete in this week’s tournament.
The men's team has been close to winning it all before—in 2020 they earned an at-large bid to the national tournament, but it was canceled because of the pandemic. Last year, the team’s efforts were thwarted due to a fight with another school after a regular-season game. The incident was deemed “non-collegial” and all TCC players were given a two-game suspension, eliminating them from the postseason. Only two players and no coaches returned from last year’s team.
TCC Basketball only has one national championship in school history. The women’s basketball team brought home the trophy in 2018.
