Men's basketball returns for the Raiders this weekend with rivalry weekend

The Southern Oregon University men's basketball team gets quite the welcome into the Spring season: a match-up with rival Oregon Tech.

Ds of game.and this weekend marks the return of men's college basketball for s-o-u.

And they get to do it against their rival-- oregon tech.

S-o-u was granted two additional weeks to prepare for the season before starting games because of more stringent covid regulations in jackson county.

But with health protocols set-- the raiders are ready for their long awaited return to the court.

It will be a much different team from the one that made the trip to south dakota last year in the n-a-i-a national championship.

Four new starters will take the court on friday.

Redshirt junior tez allen the only returning starter from last season.

Everyone of the players has been grinding hard to get back into game shape.

Over a year has gone by since the raiders last played a basketball game.

Their patience and perseverance will soon pay off.

Josh washington: "all of our guys have just been in the gym as much as they can , just trying to find even an outside hoop to go shoot at.

It's been hard for everybody to just get inside of a gym so i know these guys have been itching to get out here and play, just been working out and just finding a place to shoot hoops or something."

Getting back in shape may have been the toughest part of the build up to spring games.

The raiders only recently were able to start contact practices and the ramp up after 2 and a half months off was a long one.

73 practices have gone by since their season ended a year ago... now it's time to play.

Brian mcdermott: "now only about 15 or 18 have been full contact.

But 73 practices.

Normally if go about 17 or 18 they're don with ya man, they want to play.

So i think they're ready."

The cascade conference going with back-to-back games on the weekends.

So s-o-u will