Booneville, Miss., -- Northeast Mississippi Community College's head women's basketball coach Brian Alexander has led his team to another post-season berth in his second year as commander-in-chief for the Lady Tiger basketball program.
This will be Alexander's tenth appearance in the Mississippi Association Community & Junior College's (MACJC) State Tournament. Alexander -- in 2008 at Itawamba -- became the only coach in the history of the MACJC to ever win two State Championships in the same season. Alexander is also one of the only two coaches in the history of the MACJC to take four different basketball programs to the MACJC State Tournament.
Alexander's record speaks for itself, and when he took over the Northeast program in 2011, Alexander had big shoes to fill by replacing long-time former head coach Ricky Ford. However, Alexander has lived up to the challenge and looks forward to continuing to showcase his coaching abilities and hopes to seize this opportunity that he and his team has worked hard to achieve this season.
In his first season as the head coach for the Lady Tigers, Alexander's team qualified for the MACJC State Basketball Tournament in Fulton with a dramatic 104-102 overtime win against Mississippi Delta on Sophomore Night at Bonner Arnold Coliseum in Booneville.
Led by sophomore Anna Brooke Page of Belmont and Amber Jackson of Tupelo, the Northeast Lady Tiger basketball team adapted to Alexander's style of play and ended up giving Copiah-Lincoln a run during the first round of the MACJC State Tournament before falling 76-63 to the Lady Wolves.
Now, in his second season at the helm, Alexander will look for some new faces to lead the way in this year's MACJC State Tourney. Another Belmont native, Angelia Allen, is leading the way in scoring averaging 12.5 points per game followed by LaTonya Gadison (Rosedale), who averages 11.8 PPG, to go along with Antionette Riddle's (Tupelo) 11 PPG.
Northeast will face-off against the MACJC's south number two seed Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in the first-round that is set to begin on Monday, February 25 in Poplarville, at Pearl River Community College.
Gulf Coast has an overall record of 17-6 and are 8-4 in division play, just behind front runner Copiah-Lincoln Community Colleges Lady Wolves, 20-3, 11-1, respectively. Coach Alexander's squad sits at 12-10 overall and 7-5 in division play and have lost their last two games to Holmes Community College 59-57 and to Mississippi Delta 67-64.
However, Coach Alexander is confident going into Monday afternoon's match-up with the Lady Bulldogs.
"We are excited about playing a well-coached Mississippi Gulf Coast squad who is, in my mind, one of the best teams in Mississippi this year," said Alexander. "They (Gulf Coast) are extremely talented and they play with great energy. As for the Lady Tigers, we are encouraged to finally get some bumps and bruises healed so our players can get back to playing the way we want to play."
Northeast will tip-off against the Lady Bulldogs at 1 p.m. on Monday afternoon.
Fans can listen to live audio action of all the Lady Tigers' playoff games this week by tuning into www.wnau1470am.com or fans can follow in-game results @NEMCC_SID or @NEMCC_Athletics on Twitter.
For a complete bracket of the State Tournament you can go to http://jucoweekly.org
Click Here for the MACJC Women's Basketball Bracket.