The Bakersfield College men’s basketball team entered into their last two games on a three-game win streak and were looking to build on some late success in a down season. The challenge for the Renegades was facing the top team in the Western State Conference, the Santa Monica College Corsairs, then on the road at the Glendale College Vaqueros.

The Renegades lost both of the games, 96-81 against Santa Monica and 76-57 at Glendale. BC finished the season 10-17 overall and 4-8 in the WSC south after going 23-6 and finishing the conference in second place last season.

This season ends for the Renegades, without as much as a first round playoff game. Much unlike last season, where BC was given a first round bye, but lost in the second round to Southwestern College.

On offense this season, the Renegades averaged 75 points per game while defensively allowing opponents to score 83 per game.

Head coach Rich Hughes explained that one of the reasons for their lowered scoring output is the team not being as good of a shooting team as in past years.

“Last year, ours was about 86-87, which was actually one of our lower years. We weren’t a very good scoring team this year. We were the worst three-point shooting percentage team in the conference and the worst [field-goal] shooting team overall too.

“So, if you don’t put the ball in the hole, it makes it difficult to win games,” said Hughes.

“We knew going into the season that this was probably going to be one of our worst perimeter shooting teams that we’ve had and the stats confirm that at the end of the year.

“We ran the same offense and got a lot of the same looks we just didn’t knock down shots. We did shoot better in conference than we did overall and that was a positive for us. It helped keep us in games down the stretch. Sometimes it just comes down to making shots, and we didn’t make shots.”

The Renegades shot 28 percent from three-point range while shooting 43 percent from the field and 66 percent from the line.

One of the bright spots for the Renegades was forward Cooper Damron. Damron, a 6-foot-6 sophomore, was named to the all-WSC men’s team. Damron averaged 15 points and six rebounds in conference and 12 points and five rebounds overall.

Freshman guard Marshall Lange, earned honorable mention all-WSC averaging 11 points and 5 assists in WSC competition.

Hughes gave praise to Damron and talked about what the other sophomores did for BC.

“Coop was consistent and he actually played his best basketball in conference. He was pretty much a unanimous selection by the coaches because he had good games against everybody, so he earned it,” said Hughes.

“Bart [Dandridge] and Stevie [Howard] were important parts of our team the last two years. Bart always worked his tail off on the defensive end and toward the end of conference he started to really shoot the ball the way he’s capable of shooting. When we went on the three game win streak, a lot of that had to do with him shooting well as well as a lot of other guys starting to shoot better.

“Stevie never said much, but he always played hard, always competed for us. He got hurt in the second-to-last game and he didn’t get a chance to show what he could really do on sophomore night and he didn’t get to play in his last game, it was just a tough way for him to go out.”

BC’s roster may have a large turnover. Last season the Renegades had half of their team as returning players, but in they decided to move on for other reasons.

Hughes also mentioned Lange getting an honorable mention, the hopes for next season with Lange returning and some of the freshmen coming back.

“I thought his stats in conference were second best on our team and coaches sometimes don’t judge by the stats when selecting an all-conference team, but they obviously felt the numbers were good enough to put him up there,” said Hughes.

“We’re going to conduct our player meetings and sit down with everyone and see where their heads are at and what they’re thinking of doing and go from there. A lot of it will depend on their commitment to playing spring and summer and getting better, because obviously we didn’t win a lot of games.”

Hughes spoke about the current recruiting class he is working with and what he is expecting.

“There are quite a few guys who went somewhere else and it didn’t work out academically or athletically, whatever the case may be, and there are probably three or four guys like that here at BC right now. We’re just hoping they can stick it out and the biggest thing will be committing to coming out in the spring and in the summer and going hard every single day to make this team,” Hughes said. “There are about four or five local seniors that I think could contribute for us. We just have to get them locked in and coming to BC next year.

“The world of JC is just a different beast, because you could reload every year because it’s only a two-year program. So we’re looking and hopefully we get these guys to commit and get us back to winning some games.”