GALESBURG, Illinois—The Prairie Fire men's basketball team embarks on the 2018-19 season after finishing strong last season. The team's seven wins were the most since the 2007-08 season and five of those wins came from January 12 on. The team features a strong group of returners and an intriguing array of newcomers. The first-year class alone has 12 members in addition to four transfers.

Senior Jonathan Damota led the team in scoring last year, averaging 13 points per game. Sophomore Blake Goldbold grabbed a team-high 7.4 rebounds per game while also pouring in 11.2 points per game. Junior Deryk Ruple added 9.7 points per game while shooting 36 percent from beyond the arc. Sophomore Ikenna Ozor came on strong in the second half of the season with double-digit scoring efforts in two of the last four games. Senior Alik Airapetyan and sophomores Sean Pollock and John Tsahageas also return.

Junior transfers Justin Windt (Lewis University), Troy Johnson (Kishwaukee Community College), Bruce Gaitor (Yakima Valley Community College), and Mitchell Parker (Earlham College) infuse the team with some leadership and experience to help the returners guide the underclassmen.

The talented class of first-years is highlighted by Malcolm Bray (Los Angeles, CA), Jordan Rayner (Edwardsville, IL), Alex Whitman (Kalispell, MT), Nicholas Whitman (Kalispell, MT), and Dimitrios Lysellis (Thessaloniki, Greece). Trey Berry, Elijah Crump, Sungjin Min, Wes Jolly, Isaiah Lockett, and Satchel Stern also join the fold.

"We have a strong nucleus of returning players who have seen a lot of minutes and produced at a high level," said head coach Kevin Walden. "The key for us is going to be blending our returners with our newcomers as quick as possible. Once we do that we should be a pretty good team."