ELAC's 11-1 Start Highlights 2019-2020 SCC Men's Basketball Pre-Conference Play

Last season, East Los Angeles College earned the #2 seed in the regional playoffs only to be upset by #15 Santa Monica in Round 2. The Huskies were determined to forget that disappointing finish and so far have been the South Coast Conference's top team at the start of the 2019-2020 men's basketball season.

ELAC is 11-1 overall, ranked #7 in the coaches association State Top 30 Poll as the only conference member in the current rankings. The Huskies went 3-0 at the Riverside Holiday Classic and are on a 7-game winning streak. East LA avenged its only loss of the season to unranked Copper Mountain, winning the second meeting between the schools, 86-69. Recently, the Huskies defeated #20 Citrus and also downed unranked but conference-high RPI (#7 in state) Cerritos, 57-51. 

The SCC North Division also features Pasadena City (8-5), winners of eight of its last 10 games, and LA Trade Tech (7-6), which busted a 4-game losing streak with a 107-92 win over Christian College's JV team. 

The SCC South is paced by Long Beach City (8-4). The Vikings won a double-overtime thriller over Pasadena at the Santa Barbara City Holiday Classic, 106-98, behind 41 points by Jace Bass, who sent the game to OT on a 3-pointer and then pushed it to a second overtime on a driving layup at the first OT buzzer. LBCC then lost the championship game, also in overtime, 88-87, to state #7-ranked LA Valley. Earlier in the year, Long Beach beat the Monarchs, 64-61. 

Cerritos is a deceiving 5-6 overall as it also went a perfect 3-0 at the Riverside Classic. The Falcons have wins over #21 Ventura, #23 Saddleback and #29 Palomar and losses to #2 Fullerton (just 61-60), #3 Santiago Canyon, ELAC, #8 Allan Hancock, #18 Santa Monica and #25 Irvine Valley. No wonder why Cerritos is as high in the state RPI with a schedule that rivals the toughest pre-conference in the state. The combined record of the six SCC South teams is not pretty at 27-42 while the SCC North is at best okay at 33-32, which is why the conference isn't receiving rave reviews by the state's pollsters.

Individually, LBCC's Bass is the state's scoring leader at 31.3 points per game. The Vikings' Kester Ofoegbu is #6 at 22.2 PPG, followed by LA Trade Tech's #7 leader Mark Chin, also at 22.2. ELAC's Kealen Allen is the state leader in field goal percentage at 71.7 percent (76 for 106 attempts). Pasadena's Patric Panoosi is tied for #7 in overall 3-point field goals with 42. PCC's London Benford is #4 in the state in steals average at 3.2, followed by Chin at #7 (3.0 per game). LA Southwest's David Iwowari is tied for #7 in state blocked shots average at 2.5 per contest.