Men’s basketball team suffers third loss in conference

In a home game in which all of the proceeds will go to the Coaches vs Cancer Society, the De Anza men’s basketball team lost 60-54 to conference opponents West Valley College on Jan. 24.

Head coach Jason Damjanovic said West Valley did a really good job on rebounding and taking his team out of their sets.

“It may have looked like it was a fun game to watch but it was frustrating because I thought we missed some opportunities and made critical mistakes,” he said.

West Valley came ready to fight for the conference and some of the players felt the heat.

Kyle Dennis-Nelson, 21, accounting major said the opponents came out in attack mode and although they were thinking about winning, they didn’t exactly have a game plan on how to win.

“I feel if we came out more aggressive, the same intensity they came out on us with, we definitely could’ve won,” he said.

Some of West Valley’s aggressiveness and determination to win was shown by illegally thrown elbows at the De Anza players that never got called.

“To say that we were still in the game and they were playing like that is something,” said Denise-Nelson. “If we were playing just as intense as they were, we definitely would have came out.”

Despite the loss, the team’s main goal remains the same; win the conference. The Dons know that whatever happens in the previous game doesn’t matter, their focus is on the next game.

Dominic Simpkins, 19, communications major said they take a loss as something to learn from and that’s exactly what they are going to do.

“We understand that we were letting them run us over and we took that to heart, we just need to fix what we did wrong,” said Simpkins. “There’s never a day off playing this conference.”

De Anza now has a conference record of 3-3 with seven games left to play.