Video Tribute: The CMS Men's Basketball Class of 2021

As part of NCAA Division III week (Apr. 5-11), we will be honoring the senior classes for all 21 of our varsity sports. A number of our student-athletes elected to take a semester or a school year off and could return to action next season, but we have chosen to honor the senior classes as they would have been, without the COVID-19 interruption. The members of the Class of 2021 lost so much of what they had built towards in their first 2-3 years of competition when the pandemic hit, but still clearly left their mark on CMS Athletics.

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The members of the CMS Men's Basketball Class of 2021 began their careers with a SCIAC title and an NCAA Regional Finals appearance, and were hoping to lead the Stags back to that level again as seniors. 

Their three years produced 58 wins and only 22 losses, including an impressive 38-10 record in SCIAC contests. The 2017-18 season was particularly memorable, with CMS rolling to a 15-1 mark in league games and then dominating Pomona-Pitzer in the SCIAC finals with a 23-point win at Roberts Pavilion to move on to the NCAA Tournament, where the Stags advanced with a narrow win over Whitworth. 

With the graduation of three senior starters and three key reserves off the 2019-20 team, the Class of 2021 was going to be in a significant leadership role in their final campaigns for a younger Stags squad, before COVID-19 derailed their plans. But they were able to help maintain the winning tradition of the program during their careers, and always have their strands of a cut-down net as mementos of their careers. 



Here are the three members of the CMS Men's Basketball Class of 2021 (two seniors and one graduate student):

Grant Arthur (G, La Canada Flintridge, Calif. - CGU, Business Administration)
Arthur took advantage of his accelerated academic performance to join the Stags as a graduate student with two years of eligibility remaining. He graduated in three years from Cal State Los Angeles, including a redshirt season in his final basketball season, and enrolled at Claremont Graduate University to pursue his MBA from the Drucker School of Management. He was a part of the CMS guard rotation in 2019-20, appearing in 15 games and contributing to a league win with five points in a narrow 59-54 road win at Caltech. In the summer of 2020, Arthur worked as a consultant for the Drucker School, assisting on a project for a top-3 light rail company in China (TCT). He currently works as a commercial appraisal associate at The Renken Company.

Mitchell Kirsch (G, Atkinson, N.H. - CMC, Psychology/Economics/Studio Art)
Kirsch has been in the starting lineup for the Stags in every game for each of his last two seasons (52 total) and played in all 80 games in his three-year career.  As a junior, he averaged 8.1 points on 47.9 percent shooting from the floor, while also contributing a team-high 3.6 assists. He had his career high of 17 points in back-to-back games against Whittier and Pomona-Pitzer, and added the winning basket with seven seconds left in a one-point win over Chicago. As a sophomore, he had 14 points in a SCIAC semifinal against Occidental, helping CMS come back to force overtime. A psychology, economics and studio art major at CMC, Kirsch earned SCIAC All-Academic team honors every year with the Stags. He was a Robert Day Scholar, a Dean's List student, and a Board of Trustees Representative, and held an internship with Nike as a global procurement analyst.

Chukwueloka Oti (G, Los Angeles, Calif. - CMC, Economics)
Oti has been an important part of the CMS backcourt rotation, appearing in 42 games over the last two seasons. He averaged 3.8 points on 47.7 percent shooting as a junior, and had double-figure efforts in back-to-back games against Lewis & Clark and Pomona-Pitzer, while shooting a perfect 10-10 at the free throw line on the year (where he was 83.3 percent in his career). He also had eight points in the regular season finale against Chapman, knocking down a pair of three-pointers. An economics major at Claremont McKenna, Oti held an internship with Apple during the summer of 20 in their world wide sales finance department. He has also worked as a tutor at St. Raphael Elementary School, helping underprivileged youth in the areas of math, reading and writing.