The Thunderduck men´s basketball team is finishing the regular season, and they are ready to focus on the next step, the Dallas Conference Athletic League. In the previous 14 games during the regular season, the team coached by Jon Havens has won eight games and lost six. Now in the conference games, they will face 10 teams in order to qualify for a spot in the upcoming national tournament.

According to Havens, the team is working hard on improving different aspects, even more, when the team had around one month off.

“We always try to get better as the season goes. We want to be at your peak early. In junior college, you get basically a month off in Christmas so getting them back in shape, getting them back in their conditions, that is what we are going through right now. I like our group. I think we are playing right. We´ve got the chance to beat anybody in the country, we have just to continue to build forward and get better every day.”

Havens pointed out the main mistakes the team needs to adjust for the upcoming games. “We [have] got [to] limit mistakes, such as careless turnovers. We´ve got to be better on the offense and the defense on board. We are in Division III, which means no scholarships. Everybody we lost to have a scholarship. So we are playing teams with full scholarships.” He said.

“Our average margin of defeat is like 3.8 points, so we are right there in every game, and it’s just a little thing. My biggest guy is 6-7 and the guys we are playing against are 6-11. We are fighting that battle, but we are right there, so we can just continue to eliminate little mistakes, and by getting a little tougher, we will have a chance,” Havens said.

Point guard Micah Williams said the performance of the team has been good and recognized that during the last 14 games the group has grown considerably.

“We are a fairly young team and we grew pretty quick. We played a lot of tough teams. In some we prevailed, in some came close games but we really grew. The team needs to improve on defense. We need to improve on attitude things when it comes to being locked in and being focused at all times. Normally, there are things we need to do at a certain point in the game. We just need to be locked in, that is all,” Williams said.

The next game after time of press is scheduled for Jan. 25 against Dallas College Cedar Valley. The men’s basketball team finished in third place last season after three championships in a row.