Solano College Basketball: New Coaches, New Players, and a New Approach to a Young Season
FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE ON THE SOLANO PULSE SITE https://solanopulse.com/2025/11/21/solano-college-basketball-new-coaches-new-players-and-a-new-approach-to-a-young-season/
With many new faces, the Solano College men’s Basketball team looks to bounce back on the basketball court this season, as the games are coming in hot for the Falcons. Coming into this season, with a new head coach and talented transfers, I will preview for you what this team may look like this season as play gets underway.
In the wake of a disappointing early-season performance, losing their first two games of the season, Solano bounced back on Thursday night against Sacramento City College. It was a hard-fought contest as Solano promptly fell into a deficit in the first half; however, with the help of newcomer Carter Miles, Solano gained the energy and high-motor play they needed to blossom into a 20-point lead early in the second half. Solano sustained the lead for the remainder of the game despite a late effort from Sac City.
After the game, new coach Diego Reyes had this to say about what Carter Miles’ high motor game did for the rest of the team: “We’re fortunate to have guys that go out and do whatever we ask…Carter is one of those guys…change the course of the whole game and he shows that.”
Solano’s main problem this season has been their transition defense, especially after scoring a huge bucket on offense. In their last win against Sac City, Sophomore Guard Nicko Igancio hit a huge 3-pointer to give Solano’s lead some cushion, late in the game. When Sac city was starting to build momentum to mount a comeback, Ignacio knocked down the shot, but then the Solano’s Defense was slow to get back into a set defense on the other end. This resulted in Sac City having a free lane to the hoop for a layup, where Solano carelessly fouled, sending Sac City to the free-throw line for two shots.
This was just one of multiple cases where Solano would do something good on the offensive end, just to let it almost go to waste on the defensive end. The defensive side of Solano is something not just Coach Reyes, but the players know is one of their flaws and want to improve upon.
Starting transfer guard Dominick Dennis said this after the team’s loss in the home opener when it pertained to the defense; “Our defense was lacking for sure, we gotta fix that as a team”.
Even though the defense was lacking in the first two games, Solano held a top-10 offense that Sac city had to just 79 points, nearly 20 points below their average coming into the contest, according to California Community College Athletics. This was due to the high energy from Miles and the multiple blocks in the paint from Trevor Morris and Australian transfer Tom Schall.
The offense has been spectacular, as they rank top 10 in total points per game out of all California Community Colleges, the dominant paint offense from Trevor Morris leading the team in scoring (17.7 ppg) and the consistent guard play from Dominick Dennis (15 ppg), Nicko Ignacio (10 ppg), and Carter Miles (14.3 ppg) off the bench, have been the reason why Solano’s offense has been successful. Credit also goes to the coaching from Solano, as we are seeing a lot more creative offensive sets in the half-court, which free up the frontcourt, lanes for guards to drive, and open shots for the shooters.
Tuesday night was a rough showing from the team, as Solano lost brutally to the visiting Cosumnes River Hawks. Star player Mason Marsh and the Hawks jumped out to a huge lead early on and never looked back for a second. Coach Diego Reyes was looking for any sort of spark from his players, but the competition and skill the Hawks had was just too much. The final score was 97 to 47 in a blowout loss for the Falcons. All they can do now is move on to their next game, tonight at Chabot College.
The 1-3 start is not indicative of what their season might look like, as this team certainly has more length, energy, and chemistry than it did in previous seasons. Along with new coach Diego Reyes leading the charge, Solano is going to burst into conference play and attempt to turn some heads.