City College Men's Basketball Wants to Bring a Title Back To Ocean Campus
After falling just short to Fullerton in the state championship, the Rams are ready to to return there this year.
Men’s basketball is about to tip off, and the storied program is looking to continue its record of success, and take back the state championship.
After a stellar 2026-2027 where they went 31-2, the Rams were taken down by the Fullerton College Hornets in the championship game, 67-64. The game was just the latest in a budding rivalry between the teams, who have faced off in the penultimate game of the season four times since 2019, with Fullerton taking three of the four. However, the team looks poised to bounce back from the loss, with a number of fresh faces on the roster.
Leading the way is head coach Justin Labagh who has done nothing but win in his time at City College, posting an astonishing 89.5 winning percentage and racking up five state championships. Labagh is also a 10-time 32CA Coast-North Conference coach of the year. City College has the winningest basketball program in the history of junior college basketball, and while this year has a lot of turnover on the roster, Labagh remains confident in his group.
“When you have a lot of success, you have to recruit a bunch of guys. We got a good team in here so we’re excited about it,” Labagh said. “We have a new team, but we’re trying to work on just playing really good basketball and putting ourselves in position to be in position to win.”
A number of new players are likely to take on big roles.The team’s leading scorer of last year, Kenyon DeMuynck, transferred to Idaho State University after earning North Coast Conference Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and co-MVP honors. DeMuynck became the first player in conference history to win all three awards in the same season, but many of the returning players will still be on the front lines. Sophomores Shane Lincoln, Jaylen Wheeler and Kirby Seals are among those returning.
“We’re going to lean on [Lincoln, Wheeler and Seals] to get us into a good position,” Labagh said. “As a team, we work out a lot together,” said Lincoln, a guard who hails from Arlington, Virginia. “We lift weights and we push each other.”
Lincoln has high expectations for the team. He wants to not only win the championship, but “not lose at all, the whole season.” Some of the things the team did to improve in the offseason was put on muscle and improve on shooting. “I want to get back where we were last year, hopefully we can,” said Wheeler. “Last year we came up short, so this year I want to win with the guys, that's all I want.”
The Rams season is set to begin on Nov. 6, when they’ll take on the College of Marin Mariners in the CCSF Tip-Off Classic.
