The Western Nebraska Community College men's basketball team is ready to tip off the season this weekend with three games.

                The Cougars, who had a good pre-season, will begin the season Thursday when they face Planet Academy at 7:30 p.m. The Cougars will follow that with contests against Ft. Collins All-stars on Friday and then Dawson Community College Saturday afternoon.

                WNCC coach Russ Beck said his team is more than ready to open the season.

                "We are ready. We had some good experience in the pre-season," he said. "We had an opportunity to scout our opponent. I think the guys are ready and excited to get on the floor and see what we are capable of when it counts."

                While many junior college basketball teams opened the season last weekend, the Cougars had a weekend off. All three teams that will be at Cougar Palace this weekend all played. The three teams each bring a different flavor to the court.

                "Each game presents its unique challenge," Beck said. "As for Planet Academy, their youth, height, and ability to score in bunches will be tough. They were down by 20 to Utah State-Eastern and made a huge comeback and ended up losing 106-102. They are averaging 101 points a game after playing CSI and USU-Eastern."

                Thursday's opponent, Planet Academy, is a team of high school prep players that have plenty of height, including five players standing 6-foot-6 or taller, including 6-9 Solomon Hunt of Riverside, California, and 6-8 Will Johnson of Phoenix, Arizona.

                The Ft. Collins all-star team have plenty of players that played at Colorado State University.

                "We then go from Planet Academy to Ft. Collins All-stars and they recently have three guys that graduated from Colorado State," Beck said. "They are heady, smart, they are going to be physical. So, what works on Thursday may not be the same thing that works on Friday. We just have to play smart."

                This year's Cougar team is young with just three players that saw action for the Cougars in the past. Chase Mason is the only returner from last year's 13-19 team that saw the team lose countless games by a couple points.

                "We are a little inexperienced and that can be to our determent or to our advantage," he said. "We will just have to develop fast. We do have some pretty IQ guys on the team that have played some high-level basketball, so we are going to rely on experience outside of the program to get to where we want to be."

                While Mason returns as a key component, the Cougars also return two other players that have played for WNCC in the past. Derrick Bowers, who played two years ago, returns after sitting out last season. Bowers is a 6-3 guard from Phoenix, Arizona, who Beck said has a passion for the game.

                The other returner is Mason Smith, a 6-6 forward/guard from Alpine, Utah, who played for the Cougars in the 2011-12 season. Smith then spent the next two seasons on a Morman mission.

                "Derrick is just a very passionate player. He is really strong and good at attacking the rim," Beck said. "He is playing a little bit under control than he was three years ago. With Chase Mason, his shooting ability is much more consistent this year than last year. He has been a very consistent performer for us throughout the pre-season. Mason Smith is a guy that we can put him at any position on the floor, point guard to the five spot, and he would know what he is doing. He allows us a lot of versatility and does a lot of things well."

                While the team might be young, they have quickly grown together. Beck said the strength of this team should be their depth.

                "Our overall depth 1 through 16 will be our strength," Beck said. "I don't think we have had a team like that. I think we have good guards. We can shoot the ball, but our bigs are really mobile so we can beat guys up and down the floor. But the thing that we have been working hard on is our defense. That is something that we looked at that we had from our last scrimmage and have been addressing those the last couple of weeks. We are looking at after this weekend that this can be a really good defensive team."

                WNCC, which went 14-2 in two pre-season jamborees in October, has definitely developed that depth. Many of the players have also received Division I looks because of the jamborees in Dallas and Cheyenne.

                Smith, Bowers, and Mason might be the only sophomores, but the freshmen or newcomers are loaded with talent. Leading the list is transfer Tyrell Williams, a 6-8 post player from Miami, who spent a year at the University of Wyoming.

                WNCC also has three other players standing 6-6 or taller. They include Phil Fayne, a 6-8 forward/center from Elk Grove, California, Leon Tomic, a 6-7 forward from Zegreb, Croatia, and RJ Palmer, a 6-7 forward from Tampa, Florida. Palmer played AAU ball for Q6 All-stars, which is run by former Cougar basketball player Willie Anderson.

                WNCC also returns a couple of players that red-shirted last season for WNCC. They included Bo McVay of Gering, a 6-3 guard, along with 6-0 Marquin Walton of Compton, California, and 6-2 Michael Connor of Salisbury, North Carolina.

                The rest of the roster included 6-5 Daylon Harris of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 5-9 Michael Sparks of Denver, 6-4 Austin Payne of Elk Grove, California, 6-3 Nik Schmidt of Cody, Wyoming, 6-1 Trent Harris of Scottsbluff, 5-9 Joses Palomo of Gering, 6-5 Michael New of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 6-5 Milos Popovic of Belgrade, Serbia, and 6-2 Andrew Ramirez of Madrid, Spain.

                After this weekend's home contests, the Cougars will hit the road to Salt Lake City to face College of Southern Idaho and Salt Lake Community College. WNCC will then be back at home Nov. 19-21 for three games.

                Beck said if everything goes right, this team has the potential to host regionals and even earn a berth at the national tournament.

                "We want this weekend to prepare us for next weekend," Beck said. "Our goal is that we want to keep getting better every single game. We set some individual goals for this first game and we will see how we do in meeting those goals. We just want to keep getting better and compete for a championship. I looked at quite a few teams in the region and we feel like we can be the team to beat. We can host this tournament. We can go to Hutch. It is just are we going to make those things happen."