Elgin Community College men’s basketball team has done something that neither the men’s or women’s team has ever done before. The Spartans have made it to the final eight teams in the country. They are also the District II and Region IV Champions.

Starting on March 16 and ending on March 18, a single elimination eight team tournament begins to see who the best team in the country is.

Things could not look brighter for the men’s team as they are ranked number two out of the eight teams there and will play a much easier team because of the high seed.

Head coach Reed Nosbisch is more than excited for not only the tournament, but the entire season as a whole.

When asked about the playoffs he replied with the following.

“Who can complain? We have gone farther than any team in our schools history, we’re in the elite eight and we’re three games away from a national championship and those things are not common and they don’t come around all the time. I’ve been here a long time and this has never happened to me,” Nosbisch said.

So far in the playoffs, they have played four games and they have beat Harper, Madison, Rock Valley and Lorain County, a school in Ohio.

However, these playoffs has taken somewhat of a dark turn for the men’s team. During the Madison game, they lost their leading scorer, Chris Benjamin, to an injury. who is now feared out for the rest of the playoffs. However, Nosbisch had a plan if something like this would happen.

“The Madison and Rock Valley games we played a little bit slower and that was to get “Homer” Denson more involved in more than what we have had him in the past and since he is six foot eight we have to wait for him to get down the floor to enter the basketball to him so we kind of slowed the pace down a little bit,” Nosbisch said.

There was really only one thing that Nosbisch could consider as a weakness, which is not much of a weakness at all: crowd size.

“It was different because it was a very large crowd here and it’s not something that we are used to and I think that the adrenaline was flowing to start the game and I think that we just had a lot of nerves going into the game,” Nosbisch said.

Another member of the team that felt that have been doing good is forward Stephen Moyer.

“We have been doing well, we have had a scouting report and executed a game plan, we got the ball to our better scorers, overall I believe that we have come closer together as a team than we have this whole year,” Moyer said.

As for the games against Harper, Rock Valley and Madison, they had already played them in the regular season and comparisons were made to how the team played in the playoffs to the regular season.

“Playoffs are always different. People bring their best games and in that fact I would say it was a different game for sure,” Moyer said.

When asked about how he feels about being Regional and District champion, he replied like anyone would be like in his shoes.

“It’s a good feeling, sometimes you don’t realize until you step back, wow there are only eight teams left and we’re one of them,” Moyer said.

A final member of the team that is excited that it is down to eight is forward Juwan Stewart.

“I think that we have been playing great as a team, no one had really been trying to outshine each other, we have been doing the same game plan since game one,” Stewart said.

Due to Benjamin getting injured, Stewart had to move from power forward to small forward.

“I had to move up to Small Forward the last couple of games, so I had to learn how to play that position and the plays around them,” Stewart said.

Overall, the morale of the team is strong and with a high seed in the bracket, there is nothing stopping this team from being national champions.