NOTE: The Wilmington College men’s basketball team was reported in Friday’s New Journal to be at home to open the season. That is incorrect. The Quakers open at Mount St. Joseph. The News Journal regrets the error.
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Wilmington College will open its men’s basketball season tonight against Transylvania University at Mount St. Joseph.
Tip-off for the season opener is set for 6 p.m. at MSJ.
The Quakers will have a short turnaround for their second game when they tip-off 1 p.m. Saturday against Mount St. Joseph University.
Wilmington High School graduates Jeffery Mansfield and Matt Smith return to WC for their sophomore seasons. Mansfield is the top returning rebounder at 4 per game and average more than 7 points per outing.
Wilmington was 17-8 overall and 13-5 in Ohio Athletic Conference play last season, one game shy of winning its first-ever regular season OAC title.
WC was knocked off in the conference tournament by Baldwin-Wallace 74-71.
Wilmington College was picked by conference coaches to finish fourth this season.
K.C. Hunt, the OAC coach of the year in 2018-19, is in his 13th season at Wilmington.
DaeShawn Jackson, who averaged 15 points a game last season, returns to follow up on his stellar first-team All-OAC campaign. Kevin Lewis was second team and Will Patrick was given honorable mention. Patrick and Lewis were both seniors last season.
In all, 12 players return to the Quakers roster from last season while eight players did not return.
Of note, Jackson Tillapaugh, a 6-6 freshman from Arizona, is the son of Michelle Melvin Perry, a former standout athlete at Wilmington High School, and Ronn Tillapaugh, a former coach at WC.
Transylvania was picked by league coaches to win the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference. Transy was 17-10 last season.
Mount St. Joseph finished 8-17 last season, one of those losses was an 86-65 defeat at Wilmington.
