HICKORY, N.C. — After navigating an interesting offseason and lengthy preseason, the Catawba Valley Community College men's basketball program looks to build off its successes from each of the past two seasons heading into the 2020-21 campaign.

The Red Hawks are coming off a pair of 22-9 season in which they were one win away from tying the school record for victories. Last winter, CVCC finished second in its conference and also won a school-record 14 home games.

The build to the 2020-21 season has been a much different one than seasons past with the pandemic creating a number of challenges for head coach Bryan Garmroth, who enters his 10th season at the helm of the Red Hawks.

"It's been a challenge just preparing for the season with recruiting and team meetings all going virtual," Garmroth said. "It was as weird for us as it was everybody else, but I feel like in spite of all of that we were able to come up with a really good recruiting class."

Garmroth held regular zoom meetings with his current and new CVCC men's basketball players, but one of the biggest challenges for his team was preparing physically for the season with gyms, courts and workout facilities closed for months.

"They had to find their own way to stay in shape," he said. "It was challenging, and it's going to continue to be challenging. We just have to take what we have and be the best we can be with the situation the way it is."

The Red Hawks returned to campus in August, preparing for a season that was set to start in January due to regulations set by the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).

Despite the wait for a season, Garmroth said the return to CVCC's campus — now with mask-wearing and temperature checks — was a welcome one for him and his players.

"It was good to get them back on campus in some form of normalcy," he said. "We really had to sit down and think about how we were going to practice and certain things. Our season wasn't going to start to January 20, and we had them here on August 15."

Despite the long layoff from competition, Garmroth has been impressed with his team's ability to grind throughout the preseason.

"They've come in every day, practiced hard and lifted weights," he said. "They also had a great academic semester."

All of that work showed particularly in the classroom.

Despite most of their classes being held in a virtual format, 10 Red Hawk men's basketball players achieved a 3.0 GPA or higher in the fall, something that really impressed Garmroth.

"You have a lot of freshmen coming in here who have no idea what college academics are like and what they are going to do," he said. "Most of their classes are online or virtual. It's hard enough being a freshman on a seated class in a normal situation. We might of had one of the best academic semesters we've ever had. We lost no one to eligibility. That's Catawba Valley Community College. Everyone pitched in and made it work."

Now, after five scrimmages — three in the fall and two earlier this month before the start of the regular season — the Red Hawks are ready to take flight in hopes of exceeding the past two year's results on the court.

"We've not performed as well in the scrimmages as we'd liked, but I don't put a whole lot of stock into scrimmages in terms of winning and losing," Garmroth said. "I'm more concerned about finding rotations and figuring out who plays better together and things you can't necessarily get out of practice. The scrimmages showed us that we still have a ways to go in coming together and grasping what it takes."

The Red Hawks will be powered on the court this season by 12 sophomores — seven of which are returning to the team, including guards Charles Bryson, Jaylen Prioleau, Donovan Evans, Nash Whitener and John Bean and forwards Cam Walden and Tony Hauser.

CVCC also added six sophomore transfers, including Malik Hamrick (Johnson C. Smith), Derrick Molden (Polk State), Joe Rogers Jr. (North Carolina Wesleyan), E.J. Thomas (Sandhills CC) and Bayoh Kamara (Sandhills CC).

"It's always good to have sophomores at this level," Garmroth said. "Everybody is working hard. They all seem to get along well. We see our sophomores have all improved. They certainly understand things better. Individually talent-wise and player-wise we've got what we need. It's just seeing if we can bring it all together as a team."

Paired with that veteran leadership, Garmroth believes a talented group of Red Hawk freshmen will contribute as well, which includes guards Demetrius Washington, Myles Adams, A.J. Daniels, Anthony Isbell and Darien Wynn and forward Quincy Martin.

"We are counting on some freshmen, but they are still learning," Garmroth said. "This year, our freshmen listen to the sophomores better than they have in year's past. It's a good group."

The Red Hawks' roster also features one of its larger teams in recent memory with five players at least 6 feet, 4 inches tall and two who are 6-foot-7 or taller.

"We've got more depth in the post than we've had. That's good," he said. "I've always wanted a strong post game, but at the end of the day college basketball is about guards. Somebody has to got to get the post players the ball, and somebody has got to be able to shoot from the outside or (your opponent) can clog those post players up. I do think we have a good, balanced group."

The Red Hawks' league — Region 10 Division II — will have a much different look this season with two programs (Wake Tech, Pitt) opting out of playing due to the pandemic.

The NJCAA is also allowing Division III teams in Region 10 to move up a division due to the cancellation of their DIII national tournaments because of low participation.

This means CVCC will now play Central Carolina Community College and Sandhills Community College, which has won two national championships in the DIIi ranks.

"It's going to be a really competitive league," Garmroth said. "We've got 18 Region games from the end of January until the end of March. We've got three games that are non-Region. With Central Carolina and Sandhills coming in, they are just as good or maybe even better than some of the teams that dropped out. Region 10 has some good basketball. It will be a challenge."

Perhaps the largest opponent though for every team in Region 10 will come off the court in the form of combating the pandemic and COVID-19 to get the finish line at the end of the season.

"The biggest thing is we've got to keep everyone healthy," Garmroth said. "Normally that means staying away from turned ankles and hurt knees. Now we are talking about one player getting COVID and suddenly we lose two weeks of the season and practice. It's definitely challenging."

A chance to go to nationals for the first time would be special for Garmroth and his program, but given how the past calendar year has been just reaching nationals this season would be extremely unique.

"Making a national tournament at this level is extremely hard to do because there are so few teams that can do it and so few can make it," he said. "There aren't at-large bids. I think making this year would mean that you've overcome more obstacles than any other year to get there. It'd be probably even more special."

As for his team's chances at getting to nationals for the first time, Garmroth knows there are many challenges that stand in the way of achieving that goal.

"We definitely could achieve it, but we've got a great league," he said. "I think it's going to be a very well-paired league. When you look at the teams, everybody is just as good as each other. It's going to be who can stay healthy — talking about COVID — and who is the toughest mentally. Every game is a toss up."

ROSTER: http://gocvcc.com/sports/mbkb/2020-21/roster

SCHEDULE: http://gocvcc.com/sports/mbkb/2020-21/schedule