In their first appearance at the 3C2A State Tournament since the 2017-18 season, the Cerritos College men's basketball team will be facing a familiar foe. The Falcons (23-8), who are the #4-seed from Southern California, will be facing the #1-seed from Northern California San Francisco City College (29-1) at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday at Mt. San Antonio College. Back in 2018, Cerritos faced the Rams and saw their 73-60 lead with 8:30 left in the game slip away, as the Rams posted an 89-83 win.

Oddly enough, in that 2018 state tournament game, the Falcons were playing without their third leading scorer (9.8) and rebounder (5.4) in Jason Carter, who is now an assistant coach with Cerritos.

That game at the state tournament was first meeting against San Francisco City College since the 1992-93 season when the Falcons posted an 81-50 win. The teams had also met each other three other times in the post-season, with Cerritos earning an 88-84 win in the state semifinals on their way to the 1998-99 state championships. They lost to SF City in the 1983-84 and 1977-78 state playoffs.

The Rams come into the state tournament riding a 14-game winning streak and are the champions of the Coast Conference North Division, while Cerritos has won seven in a row and 14 of their last 15 games, while they were to co-champions of the South Coast Conference South Division.

The Falcons are sophomore-heavy and led by two solid guards, Darron Henry (Long Beach Poly HS) and Dillon Botts (Mayfair HS), while center Spencer Ezewiro (Paramount HS/Moberly Area, MO CC) is a threat on both ends of the court. Henry leads the team in scoring (14.3 ppg) assist (5.4 apg), while he averages 3.4 rebouds a game. As for Botts, he has averaged 8.3 points, 3.5 assists and 4.1 rebounds a game. Ezewiro is second on the team with a 12.5 scoring average and hauls down 9.1 rebounds a game. Playing most of the season off the bench, but now a starter, Marcel Hayes (Long Beach Poly HS) contributing 12.0 points and 4.3 rebounds a game, with Andrew Mata (Schurr HS/Holy Cross, IN College) knocking down 81 three-pointers this season and produces 8.8 points a game. 

For the Rams, who average 92.4 points a game this season, they are led by Rickey Mitchell, Jr (13.1 ppg) and King-Njhsanni-Wilhite (11.9 ppg), while eight players average at least seven points a game. John Squire leads them with a 6.6 rebounding average, with Antonio Pusateri pulling down 5.1 boards a game. Mitchell has also knocked down 74 three-pointers, with Wilhite (51) and Ray-John Spears (50) also threats from long distance.