The men’s basketball team of American International College enjoyed their best season in three years, making it all the way up to the NE-10 Championship.

In his first year at the helm, Coach Andy Burkholder led AIC to its first NE-10 Championship in 21 years. He finished the season 24-7 and second in the NE-10 Southwest Division with a mark of 15-5. The Yellow Jackets earned the NCAA Division II East Regions number one seed and hosted the first three rounds at Henry A. Butova Gymnasium.

Both Coach Burkholder and AIC Senior Guard Bobby Harris were honored for their achievements in Kansas City.

The season took a lot of hard work, and followed some tough years.

In the past three years, the Yellow Jackets total record is 26 wins and 54 losses with the past two seasons having nine wins apiece. The Yellow Jackets had been on a constant downfall until this basketball season.

They were supposed to be last in the conference polls at the beginning of the season. That gave the Yellow Jackets motivation to prove the conference wrong.

With that sitting in the back of the Yellow Jackets heads, they worked hard in practice everyday in order to achieve the goal of having a better season. One thing that was different from this season is having a new basketball coach for the men’s team, but at the start of the season the men’s team had no coach.

Assistant Coach Chris Oroszko, he stepped in and worked with the men’s team to help them achieve their goal of a better season.

Burkholder was named Head Coach of the Yellow Jackets and with him around they had a whole new atmosphere in the gym. The boy’s team started working and playing together.

Oscar Assie, who is a junior on the men’s basketball team currently and was on the team last year, said, “Coach Andy lets people play within their mistakes.” Oscar feels like the team is completely different now that they are under a new coaching staff.

The year started off strong with a 10-3 record for the first half of the season, surpassing the total wins of the previous season, which only totaled to 8 wins for the entire season. AIC became one of the top contenders in the league coming in first overall for the first half of the season. The boys still wanted more, they wanted to continue to make a name for themselves

Going into the second half of the season, the Yellow Jackets continued to prove the critics that they are contenders in the conference. Extending their record to 20-6 at the end of the regular season, the Yellow Jackets placed third in the Northeast-10 conference and found a spot in the NE-10 tournament.

The last time AIC found a spot in the Regional tournament was 2010, so this is a huge thing for the men this year. Hopefully they have a chance to get a championship ring and make it far into the NCAA tournament.