NEMCC Hosts HS Basketball Showcase

High school boys basketball players got to show their stuff today in Booneville.

This fall.

Northeast mississippi community college basketball coaches held a showcase for high school players today, which as wtva's matt st.

Jean explains has been a rare opportunity this summer.

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(nat) (track) one of those athletes is q wimsatt from corinth.

He needed this summer to start getting on the college radar.

(q) like i was really depending on the summer basketball program because i have no offers, so i was hoping that would come around but it didn't.

(track) it wasn't easy making the showcase happen.

Nemcc head basketball coach cord wright had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it happen.

Staff had to take each players temperature going into the building.

Each player had to sign a waiver, the staff deep cleaned the gym and equipment.

Players socially distanced as best they could throughout the day.

But to see the kids out on the court competing, it was all worth it.

(wright) everybody is excited to say that the gym is open let's go and so we've been fortunate to do this two years in a row, this year with all the stuff that was going on it made it more difficult but every kid that walked in the gym the first they said was man it feels good to be back in the gym.

(track) all the focus is on football right now, at the college, community college, and high school levels.

But decisions whether to bring back athletics this fall affect basketball too.

According to coach wright, football sets the tone for the entire athletic year.

(wright) with getting football, that gives us a sense that maybe we will have sports, maybe there will be some more, as we're using the word, normalcy going, so it's an extremely important thing and i know times right now are tough and i know the powers that be are working hard and we're hoping for the best (track) one of the biggest dominos in the football decision is players.

Q, is a multi-sport athlete.

He plays football and basketball.

Depending on the next few weeks, he may have to choose one or the other.

(q) we, when we heard it might of moved to the spring, we was really hurt because like we don't know how that would affect basketball because i like basketball more but i want to do both.

(matt) there are no easy decisions when it comes to this pandemic and athletics is no exception .

For today the athletes just enjoyed getting back on the court with some of their friends that they've played with this season and got in some good competition.

Reporting in booneville, matt st.

Jean, wtva 9 news.

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