Sixteen games into the season and Cabrini’s men’s basketball team is currently 2-14. The team was on a 12-game losing streak until Jan. 25 when the Cavaliers hosted a game against Immaculata.
Bruce MacLelland, a senior English and communication major and co-captian, gave the team hope when he brought it to a 2-point game. Randy Reid, a junior accounting major and co-captain of the team, pulled through in the last few seconds of the game by banking in two foul shots and put Cabrini in the lead with less than a second left on the clock. Cabrini won and took home a 67-65 win, which is the first win for the team since Nov. 21.
Although the team won on Thursday, that doesn’t make the 12-game losing streak that they had before that game go away. Up until Jan. 25, the team has lost 12 games back to back, which put them 1-8 in the PAC, but since the win on Jan. 25, that standing is now 2-8.
Matthew Macciocca, the men’s basketball head coach, said, “My belief is that the record doesn’t reflect how hard these kids have worked. They come out everyday and give 110 percent.”
“As a coach,” Macciocca said, “I want to go out and win, but sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce the way you want it to.”
With seven freshman, four sophomores and four juniors, the Cavaliers team has many fresh new faces. When asked what may be causing the losses, Greg Clifton, a junior marketing major, said, “The reason for our 2-14 record is mainly because our young team lacks the discipline to take control of games when it matters the most. This problem stems from a lack of game experience. Our team is very young.”
Although there are many fresh faces, Macciocca said that the team is “slowly getting back to where we should be.”
Reid said, “This season so far has not gone the way anyone has expected but I am so proud of my teammates for not giving up and cashing it in.” Clifton added that “It’s easy to look to the coaches at a time like this and pass the blame, but the fact is that the team is responsible for playing.”
Macciocca had stressed that many of the losses the team experienced were normally due to just “one possession or one shot that could have made the game something special.”
So, while the rest of Cabrini was on winter break, the men’s team was working on improving their defense, concentrating on playing together as a team, playing loose and also with a lot of concentration.
“Lately we’ve been putting 36 and 38 minutes together, we need to get a whole 40 minutes together in order to win,” Macciocca said.
The team has nine more games ahead of them and with them currently being in 10th place, playoffs are very much an attainable goal.
“Luckily for our team, our division is still very wide open. Just a few wins and we are right in the playoff hunt believe it or not,” Clifton said. Clifton’s teammate Reid agreed. “By no means is the season over,” he said. “Seven more wins and we are in the playoffs. We have nine opportunities left to make it happen.”
With nine games left, Macciocca believes that “with one win it could create a snowball effect of many more to come.”
