Men’s Basketball earns pre-season #8 national ranking

2025-26 Men's Basketball Schedule

Haverhill, MA (October 22, 2025) – The Northern Essex Community College men's basketball team, the three-time defending Region 21 champions have been ranked eighth in the NJCAA Preseason poll released earlier this week by the NJCAA Basketball Committee after a 29-4 season last year.

The Knights return 11 members from the 2024-25 season highlighted by First Team All-Region selection Alejandro Delgado (Haverhill) who averaged 14.9 points per game to go along with 8.7 rebounds while playing just over 21 minutes per game.

NECC also welcomes back double-digit point scorer Alex Johnson (Worcester) who dropped in 10.3 points per game a season ago. Johnson will highlight a backcourt that is expected to be one of the deepest in the country this season. Returning to the backcourt with Johnson will be Joendy Rosario (Lawrence), Cristian Moscat (Lawrence) and Yunosuke Matsuda (Tokyo, JP). Newcomers expected to have an impact in the backcourt are Jay'von Depina (Brockton) and Joan Vidal (Lawrence).

In the frontcourt Christian Sanders (Boston) returns along with Johnarieus Davis (Waterbury, CT) with newcomers Teriq Goodman (Worcester) and CJ Williams (Easton) expected to contribute.

Darren Stratton enters his 23^rd season leading the program with a .626 winning percentage currently sitting at 351-210.

The Knights will open their 30-game regular season schedule on Saturday November 1^st when they travel to the Jersey Mike's Brookdale Basketball Classic to take on Rockland County and Monroe-Bronx.

A 13-game November schedule will see the Knights open at home on Thursday November 6^th against Bristol Community College. The November schedule will also see NECC travel to perennial national contender Sandhills (NC) Community College and the month will conclude with the annual NECC Turkey Classic on Thanksgiving weekend as the Knights will welcome Suffolk County and Hudson Valley along with Roxbury

Six games are scheduled in December and the Knights will open the second half of the season at home on January 9^th against Clinton Community College. The regular season will wrap up in February with post-season play scheduled to begin on February 25^th. The full scheduled can be found on the NECC Athletics website, www.neccknights.com.