Dons Rough Start is Motivation For the Rest Of the Season

The Santa Ana Men’s Basketball team started the season off slow going 1-3 in their first four games.The Dons first three losses took place against Long Beach, Chaffey and Mira Costa.

After finishing the the 2017-2018 season with a record of 11-14 and, the Dons look to turn the page on last season with a better outcome this season.

This year’s SAC squad will be led by returning sophomores and team captains, Forward Chris Bailey and Guard Jordan Owens.

“Last year, we had great players, a lot of older cats on the team with egos, but this year we have seven new guys with positive, hard-working attitudes so it feels like a step in the right direction” Bailey said when describing the on and off court improvements.

“Our goal and mindset this year is too look at the big picture which is making playoffs and winning conference,” said second-year guard Owens.

Owens also added how his mentality and IQ is better overall after training this off-season. “This summer, I worked extremely hard on my game, going back to my film and the team’s film as a whole. I saw what I needed to improve on and that was some ball-handling mechanics and becoming a more vocal leader to my teammates.”

Head coach David Breig is embracing the challenge of having a young team this upcoming season.

“We’re pretty positive, we’re young, we returned two sophomores from last year’s team. We’re going to have to get better, improve, play together and do the right things to compete,” Breig said.

Breig also likes the team make-up this year compared to previous seasons. “We have a deep group which is good, the one positive thing about this year is our depth. If we were to have any injuries, we would be fine as we have other players to fill in to those roles”.

With fresh faces and a new season finally here, the Dons will have a tough hill to climb as they have four games in the next two months at home.

The other 15 games are played away from SAC, 11 of them being tournament games.

If the Dons hope to make playoffs they’ll need play well through the first half of the season.

This group is eager to get out there and compete, Guard Jordan Owens wants to make it known that the Dons should not be counted out this season.

“I like our chances this year way better than last year. We all know who we are, we don’t try to do anything we know we can’t do. We all play hard and have no egos, it’s refreshing”.

Santa Ana’s next game will be this Thursday, November 29 against West LA in the Wild West Shootout Tournament.