The Irvine Valley men's basketball team begins hosting its IVC Classic Thursday afternoon.

Four games will be played on both Thursday and Friday and three games are slated for Saturday. The championship game is at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The Lasers won the title last year, beating Long Beach City in the final.

Irvine Valley opens play on Thursday against Imperial Valley at 6 p.m.

Other Thursday games are Cerritos against Canyons at 2 p.m., Santa Monica against Cuyamaca at 4 p.m. and Long Beach City against Ventura at 8 p.m.

"It is a wide open field this year and really any team can win," Irvine Valley coach Jerry Hernandez said.

Irvine Valley was ranked eighth in the California Community College Men's Basketball Coaches Association Poll last week.

But the Lasers fell out of the poll this week after dropping their first two games of the year on the road.

IVC lost to Palomar, 77-73, last Friday and then MiraCosta, 59-57, on Saturday.

"I'm not completely surprised with how we started," Hernandez said. "We were in both of those games. We just have an inexperienced team this year.
"It is going to take some time to grow and for the players to be comfortable in the system as well as develop better chemistry. And I am still evaluating.
"We learned about some of our weaknesses and we will try to improve upon them this week."