By Dominic LoVallo
Assistant Sports Editor
St.Bonaventure’s men’s club basketball team had the week off from gameplay and has been using this time to prepare for its upcoming three game series against the Cornell University Big Red.
The Bonnies are currently fifth in the North Atlantic West of the National Club Basketball Association (NCBBA).
The team is off to a 1-5 start to its season and no one — whether it’s coming from the coach or a player—feels this team is rightfully represented by the record. Senior Ben Marcus knows his team wanted more out of the beginning of its play.
“I think we all wish we were a little bit better off than that, but we won the last game at Syracuse, so we went 0-5 to start but took the last game and felt pretty good going into the weekend,” said Marcus.
Captain Kevin Keller is surprised that the Bonnies are off to such a slow start.
“I wasn’t expecting to be 1-5, but it doesn’t give us a good excuse. We’re going to come out and play hard every game and work hard every practice,” said Keller.
Marcus noticed his teammates have begun to play as a unit and fight back more than when the season began.
“I think we’re battling more as a team,” said Marcus. “We haven’t really lost by a lot all season. I think every game has been within 10 points, so I think we just have to battle a little bit more and bounce back.”
Keller sees the improvement his teammates have gone through in the past few games and practices and thinks they are doing better and playing their style throughout the entirety of the game.
“We’ve definitely improved rebounding and just closing out games and just being consistent with our play. That’s what we’re trying to do,” Said Keller.
Head Coach Amir Dastoori agrees with his players that they are better than their record, but he thinks if the team could start taking advantage of leads late in the game, it could start putting a lot more games in the win column.
“We’ve been in every game,” said Dastoori. “I think we could work on finishing out games a little bit better, because there have been times within the last five minutes of a game when we have had the lead and we were unable to hang on.”
With the Bonnies preparing to head down to Cornell, senior James Thompson says the team is taking practice a little more seriously.
“The biggest thing is that we’re trying to make our practices more intense,” said Thompson. “So we are taking things a lot more seriously now, because we don’t want to be 1-5 anymore. We want to turn this season around.”
The Bonnies will be looking to add three more wins to their record when they face Cornell this Saturday.
After midterm break, the Bonnies will then play at home against the Niagara Purple Eagles on the week of March 7.
Dastoori understands that it is going to be tough going into Cornell and picking up some wins, but his team is ready for the challenge.
“I think we’ve progressed a lot each week and we’re ready,” Dastoori said. “They do have some impressive wins, but I think if we can win on Saturday the conference is wide open and anyone can go to nationals.”
