The De Anza College Men’s Basketball Team is in a slump. The Dons were defeated by Cabrillo College on January 13, putting the team’s season record to 3-10-0. The season was off to a slow start.

According to Head Coach Jason Damjanovic, this year’s team is “very young” and lacks the experience of previous teams.

  Since last season, Damjanovic has selected an all new squad, which is a challenge. According to Damjanovic, one of the main obstacles that the team faces is “a lack of leadership, this is a very young team, with a lot of freshmen,” making it a bit harder to make the team come together on the court.

“We have the fourth toughest schedule in the state of California,” Damjanovic said. The team has their work cut out for them in qualifying for the central coast playoffs he said.

 Apart from a new team, there has been a change in the attitude in regards to how the team would function as a whole. “Last season was not a good year, it was a learning experience,” Damjanovic said, and it’s from learning from their mistakes of last season that has inspired this year’s team to reach their goals.

The team is hoping to win the Coast Conference South; winning this conference automatically enters the team into the state championships.

 Austin Raub, who is undecided on his major, is the only returning player from the previous season, and said that “last season everybody was playing for themselves, and that is why people were knocking heads.” Raub said that this season, “Coach made it clear that he only wanted team players on the team who work together and don’t let their egos get in the way of playing the game.”

Damjanovic anticipates the game against San Jose City College will be the most intense. “It is always the rivalry game of the season and we are looking forward to going up against this team again.”

The team feels a similar sense of hope for the rest of the season. “We have had ups and downs, but we are coming together as a team … we were a little bumpy at the start, we’re not just playing on the court but off it,” Raub said.

As far as strategies are concerned, the rest of the season Darrien Broadnax, who majors in Computer Engineering, thinks they are going to push the ball more. “Since the last game we found out that we can run a lot, so we are going to do that more on the court.” When the team feels energized they do well. “We dominate on the court when we have the energy,” Broadnax said.

The men’s team next game at home is on Jan 22nd, against Gavilan College.