Looking back on the 2011-2012 Men’s basketball season at Bucks can only be done with a glass half empty or full attitude.

The Centurions accomplished a lot this season going a team record best 10-8 and reached the final four of the Eastern Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference playoffs. This was something that had not been accomplished at Bucks County Community College in 5 or 6 years. They also set personal team records with 73.3 points per game and their defense limited the opposition to 72.7 points per game.

On the flipside, they did not accomplish their ultimate goal of winning it all. They fell a couple of victories short.

Centurion Coach Steve Coyne has been coaching the team for the last 4 seasons as head coach and gave his thoughts on the season that was. “I kind of expected us to do better than we did, and I do not think we achieved the things we set out to achieve this year.” Coyne said.

Coyne looks past the accomplishments though as he says, “Yes, I am happy with what we did get done.”

Before the season started Coyne had told the team that he thought they were a special team and that they could achieve some amazing things. The team did show signs of that throughout the season, but did not do it on a consistent basis. “We lost to some teams that we were defiantly better than” Coyne said.

The Centurion season started with a 2-0 record to bring optimism to all involved, but then lost their next 3 games in heartbreaking fashion. Two of those games went to overtime and the combined deficit in points in those 3 games was fourteen. The Centurions then won 2 of their next 3 to finish the first half of the season 4-4. Coach Coyne said at that point he was not worried, because he knew what kind of team he had.

The 2nd half of the season started very much like the first as they jumped out and won their first two games. They lost their next two games, but the then went on a 3 game winning streak that ended against Philadelphia Community College.

The Centurions had dominated Lehigh Carbon all season and things would not change in the playoffs. They went on to play in the final four against Delaware Community College.

Guard Emmanuel Pittman and center Tariq Benn lived up to the hype all season by scoring over 300 points each. There was one guy however, who the coach pointed out that had impressed him as forward Tyler Nichol. “Tyler grew a tremendous amount this year as a basketball player and he still has some things to work on, but I think he pushed himself to be a better player this year. I was very impressed with him and I look forward to having him on the team next year” Coyne said.

A number of players will not be here next year unfortunately, and the coach will have to adjust. Players cannot always make it to practice, because of jobs and outside situations and trying to integrate the practice material into a player before a game can be quite difficult. Through in the fact that people usually don’t spend too much time here, and you realize that coaching a community college basketball team can be one of the hardest in the sport and to succeed at it speaks volumes for Coyne.