J.T. Hall Coliseum heats up tonight as the Jones County Community College Bobcats for am MACCC matchup with the MDCC Trojans. Tip-off is at 6:00 p.m. Trojan Head Coach Derrick Fears is looking for more conference wins to build his young team's confidence.

The Jones County team "is a pretty good team and give us matchup problems. Our big guys don't move their feet very well and other teams are figuring that out. Jones is a guard-oriented group. Even their bigs are guards. They are good ball handlers and their skill level is high. Hopefully, we can offset that by being at home and shoot the ball well." 

Jones County is 11-6 overall, 4-3 MACCC. The Trojans, 5-14 overall, 2-6 MACCC will have a one-week break from the hardwood after Jones. The Trojans lost on the road to Holmes Community College (11-6 overall and 3-4 MACCC) this past Monday, 79-68. Trojan Head Coach Derrick Fears' team faced several hurdles in the loss.

 "It's tough on the freshman to function on the road and the officiating was the worst we've had. I had three players in foul trouble within the first six minutes of the ballgame," Coach Fears. "Then we were dependent on guys we weren't relying on to play and carry their weight and pull us through. It's hard to come back from that. Most of the guys fouled out and Holmes is a very physical team. Foul trouble really hurt us last night."

Nicholas Council came off the bench to lead the Trojans with 16 points. Jequann Roberson had 14 points and four rebounds and Jherrone Jones had 14 points and four assists. Jeremiah Foster added 10 points and 10 rebounds. The team shot 40 percent from the field on 21-of-53 shooting. They hit 6-of-19 three-pointers for 32 percent and improved their free-throw shooting to 83 percent on 20-of-24 shots.

With the week off from competition, Coach Fears is looking to turn the temperature up in the gym and iron out both offensive and defensive problems and put in more conditioning work.

"It's a needed gap and it will give us more time to prep to play Northeast (13-9 overall and 4-4 MACCC,) one of the better ballclubs," he said.

With Freshman Latrell Vance out due to knee problems, the team has suffered without him on the floor.

"We won two of three with him back and the loss was a two-point ballgame. Without him, we struggle to score and rebound," he said. "When he went out again, we've down double digits. He is a key component."

For more team information, check out MDCCTrojans.com. Watch the game live as the Voice of the Trojans, Coach Eric Vaughn brings you the call on the Trojan YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYwCd7cr9w.