Hutchinson CC Sports Information

What a way to open the 2018-19 Jayhawk Conference season!

Just the top two teams who have split league titles the past two seasons. Just the two teams who have both battled each other in the last two Region VI Tournament championships games. Just the two teams that both competed in the last two NJCAA Tournaments and just the two teams both ranked in the Top 10 of the NJCAA Preseason Rankings.

The No. 9-ranked Hutchinson Community College men's basketball team opens the conference season at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at No. 4 Coffeyville.

The game will be streamed live on the Blue Dragon Sports Network and broadcast live on Blue Dragon flagship station KHUT-FM (102.9) and sister stations KWBW-AM/FM (1450/98.5) broadcasts at 7:20 p.m. with Glen Grunwald (play-by-play) and Rusty Hilst (analyst) calling the action.

The Jayhawk Conference has once again changed formats and has gone back to the East-West format after two years as one conference. The league schedule is 21 games this year with Northwest Tech coming into the Jayhawk West as a full member and Butler moving over to the east side. Hutch will play the west teams home and home and the east teams just once.

That means that Wednesday is the only regular-season meeting between the Blue Dragons and Red Ravens.

Hutchinson enters conference play 9-0 while the Red Raven are 7-1 with their only loss. 58-55, coming at NEO on November 14.

The Blue Dragons are leading the Jayhawk Conference in scoring at 100.6 points per game, breaking 100 points in 5 of the last 6 games. The Dragons are second in field-goal percentage at 52.1 percent and third in 3-point percentage at 38.1 percent.

The Dragons have been very balanced offensively this season with four players averaging in double figures, six scoring nine-plus points and eight averaging seven-plus points per game.

Sophomore James Rojas is the team's leading scorer and seventh-leading scorer in the Jayhawk at 18.0 points per game. He is shooting 58.4 percent from the field and averages 5.5 rebounds per game.

Freshman D.J. Mitchell comes off the bench to average 14.1 points per game. Sophomore Chris Giles is at 12.8 points and is shooting 59.4 percent from 3-point range. Rheaquone Taylor is at 12.4 points and a team-high 7.0 rebounds per game.

The Ravens are sixth in the league in scoring at 88.1 points per game. They have a season-high 139 points against the Ottawa University JV on Nov. 20. The Ravens are shooting 48.6 percent and 41.2 percent from 3-point range.

Sophomore Marvin Johnson averages a team-high 15.6 points per game, while Casey Benton averaged 10.5 points per game. Nine different players average 6-plus points per game.