Men's Basketball | 6/21/2016 2:27:00 PM

Columbia, Mo. – Columbia College men's basketball coach Bob Burchard officially announced that he has signed five new players to play basketball for Columbia in the 2016-17 season.

Burchard lost six players to graduation, but returns eight Cougars from a squad that finished 29-6 and advanced to the second round of the NAIA National Championships after winning the American Midwest Conference Regular Season and Tournament titles.

Included in the 2016-17 recruiting class are freshmen Adam Mennemeyer and Steven Holloway, sophomore Isiah Sykes and juniors Hank Mathews and Lucky Ogbomo.
 
Adam Mennemeyer comes to Columbia from Troy, Missouri after a successful career at Troy Buchanan High School. Mennemeyer is a 6-4 shooting guard that scored 1,451 career points while leading his squad to a 2014 district championship. He was twice named the GAC South Player of the Year, Lincoln County Player of the Year and first team all-district.
Steven Holloway, a Florissant, Missouri native, just completed an award winning high school career at Hazelwood Central. The 5-10 point guard was a four-year letterman where he averaged 11 points and five assists while earning all-district honors twice. Steven is second all-time in three-pointers in a season with 61 and has scored over 800 points and dished out over 400 assists in four years. His squad finished 4^th at the MSHAA state championships in 2014 and has a four-year record of 95-21 during his career.

The lone sophomore of the class, Isiah Sykes, joins the Cougars after spending last season at the University of Central Missouri where he saw time in 22 games as a freshman. The 5-9 guard spent his prep years in Jefferson City, Missouri at Helias Catholic High School and was a part of three district championship and a third place finish at the state tournament in 2014. Sykes received all-state honors twice and all-district honors for three straight seasons while also dropping in over 1,000 career points.

Hank Mathews transfers to Columbia from Wabash Valley Community College in Carmel, Illinois where he scored eight points per game and averaged two assists per game as well as shooting 45 percent from beyond the 3pt arc. The 6-2 guard graduated from Limestone Community High School where he was a second team all-state recipient in 2013 and scored over 1,000 career points.

Junior Lucky Ogbomo, who is a native of Nigeria, attended Richmond High School in Richmond, Indiana. The 6-7 forward spent his first two collegiate seasons at Danville Area Community College, where he averaged seven points and eight rebounds per game and was honored with the Sportsmanship Award.

"We are very excited about our incoming class," said Burchard. "We needed to improve in specific areas and this class strengthens us in each of these areas.  Tomas and Steve did a great job identifying "good fit" Columbia College student-athletes and we look forward to working with each of them as they begin their careers at our institution."