March Madness and MCCC Basketball

 

 

As the NCAA Basketball Tournament just came to an end, it gives us the chance to share about the rich history and success of MCCC Basketball, including the connection some of its players have to the NCAA Tournament.  Mercer County Community College won the NJCAA Division II National Championship in 1972 and 1973 and remains the only East Coast junior college to win the DII national title.  This alone is an impressive feat.  But there is even more to Mercer’s basketball history.

 

Coach Howie Landa was one of the most renowned and highly respected basketball coaches of all time. He won over 600 games in his coaching career, throughout the US and Europe. Landa came to Mercer in 1961, when it was still Trenton Junior College. During the 1963-64 season, Landa led MCCC men’s basketball to their first trip to the National Tournament. Under Coach Landa’s leadership, the 1972-73 team brought home the national title, completing a record-breaking 34-3 season. Landa led Mercer toanother national title in the 1973-74 season. Over the course of his 25 plus years of coaching Men’s basketball at MCCC, Coach Landa had 495 wins, including ten regional championships and fifteen district titles.  After his retirement from Mercer, Landa moved to Nevada, where he became an Assistant Coach under legendary UNLV Head Coach and Hall of Famer Jerry Tarkanian.  During the 1988-89 season, UNLV went 29-8, advancing to the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight.

 

Mel Weldon was on the 1973 MCCC National Championship team. In that year, Weldon was named the 1973 National Player of the Year and an NJCAA All-American. Weldon continued his basketball career at Boston College.  During the 1974-1975 season, Weldon was a team captain and helped lead BC to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16.  After graduating from Boston College, Weldon played professionally in the CBA (Continental Basketball Association) and in Venezuela. Weldon was selected to play for the 1973 World University Games (USA) team in Moscow, where the team finished with a perfect 9-0 record, and captured its first gold medal since the 1967 Games.

 

While at MCCC, Joe McKeown earned Junior College National Small Player of the Year honors in 1974 during the Vikings 33-1 season.  McKeown transferred to Kent State, where he earned Honorable Mention All-Midland Conference honors. In 1986 McKeown took his first head coaching job at New Mexico State. During his three years at New Mexico, McKeown led the team to its first two NCAA Tournament appearances in 1987 and 1988 before moving to George Washington University. Under McKeown’s leadership, GW made 15 NCAA Tournament appearances in 19 seasons, including four Sweet Sixteen berths and one Elite Eight run.  After nearly two decades at GW, McKeown was offered the head coaching job at Northwestern University.  McKeown led Northwestern to its first NCAA Tournament appearance of the 21st century in 2015. He did it again in 2021, but McKeown often says that the team’s best shot at national success would have come in 2020, before the NCAA tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.

 

In 2010 in just his second year as Head Coach at MCCC, Howard Levy led the Vikings to the 2010 NJCAA National Tournament for the first time since 1998.  In more recent years, 2015 NJCAA All-American David Johnson led Lycoming to an 86-70 first round win over Cabrini in 2017 in the NCAA Division III National Tournament.  In 2016, Johnson had 19 points in Lycoming’s 79-71 NCAA Tournament loss vs Christopher Newport.  Former MCCC players Tyleik Kimbrough and Barry Brockington led Delaware Valley University to the 2016 Division III NCAA National Tournament and each had 17 points in an 88-78 overtime loss vs Oswego State in the first round.  IN the 2014-15 season at MCCC, Johnson was named the Region 19 Player of the Year.  Kimbrough earned 2^nd Team All-Region honors that season while Johnson earned First Team All-Region honors.  In 2022, Adnan Bajrami led Baruch College to the Division III NCAA National Tournament and had 10 points in Baruch’s first round loss vs Christopher Newport.  Bajrami led Baruch in scoring in the 2021-2022 season, averaging 15.5 points per game.

 

On the women’s basketball side, Terry Dorner led MCCC to its first National Tournament appearance in 1980 and also became the college’s first Mercer Women’s Basketball All-American. Dorner was also the first of only four women’s basketball players to score over 1,000 points while at Mercer and set a national single-game scoring record, with 49 points scored in a regional game. Following Mercer, Dorner went on to Rutgers University, where she was a Kodak District II Honorable Mention All-American and EAIAW All-Region Team selection in 1982. Dorner led Rutgers in scoring and rebounding and helped her team win the 1982 AIAW National Championship.

 

After graduating from Mercer, Angelika Szumillo (nee Stec) continued her basketball career at Long Island University (LIU) Brooklyn, leading the team in assists in both her seasons and earning NEC All-Tournament team both years.  Szumillo began her coaching career at LIU Brooklyn, where she served as Assistant Coach of the women’s basketball team from 2003- 2008. During those five years, she helped the team record their two winningest seasons in program history and winning the and earning the program’s first-ever berth to the WNIT that season.  After coaching for her alma mater, Szumillo served as an Assistant Head Coach at Monmouth University, helping the team reach the NEC Championship game in 2010-2011. From 2011 to 2019, Szumillo served as the Associate Head Coach at Fordham University, where Fordham won two Atlantic 10 Championships and also finished six seasons with 20-plus wins. In April 2019, Szumillo was named the seventh head coach at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). In her last two years at FDU, she captured back-to-back Northeast Conference regular season championships and Coach of the Year honors. In April of 2023, Szumillo accepted a position as head coach at Iona University and won her first MAAC Tournament game this March vs. St. Peter’s.

 

This is just some of the strong and impressive history of Mercer basketball.  Whether it was during their playing days or their coaching or playing days after MCCC, Mercer’s student athletes have found success and added to the strong success and history of basketball at MCCC and helped place the college on the national stage.

 

To read more about the history and success of Mercer’s basketball teams, visit: https://www.mccc.edu/athletics_home.shtml