Bas­ket­ball Team Starts Off the Sea­son Strong

MISHAWAKA—With a record of four wins and no losses, the Men’s Bas­ket­ball team has a great start to the sea­son. But what makes this team so suc­cess­ful? And will this con­tinue through­out the sea­son? 

Steve Drabyn, Head Coach of the Men’s Bas­ket­ball Team said, “I’m ex­cited where we are go­ing, and our growth to this point. There is a lot of un­tapped po­ten­tial that I am ex­cited about get­ting out of the play­ers. And I am re­ally look­ing for­ward to the next game and down the road to see what we can be, be­cause there is a whole new level we can go to and I am ex­cited about pur­su­ing that.” 

Drabyn’s ex­pec­ta­tions from the play­ers and the en­tire team this year is that they will get bet­ter. Every prac­tice, game, lift­ing weights in the gym, and even team meet­ings, is an op­por­tu­nity to im­prove for in­di­vid­u­als on the team and the team as a whole. 

Drabyn said, “It is easy to fo­cus on re­sults and wins and losses, but re­ally we try to keep it sim­ple and get bet­ter every day. We try to pur­sue ex­cel­lence in­di­vid­u­ally and also col­lec­tively as a team. If we do that every day then the re­sults will take care of them­selves.” 

The team’s core val­ues are fo­cus­ing on unity, hu­mil­ity, grate­ful­ness, mind­set, and fear­less­ness. Unity in be­ing to­gether; hu­mil­ity in think­ing of oth­ers more; grate­ful­ness in hav­ing a spirit of thank­ful­ness about the priv­i­lege they have to play bas­ket­ball; mind­set with pur­su­ing growth and pos­i­tiv­ity; and fear­less­ness with just do­ing the best they can in prepar­ing and not wor­ry­ing about doubts or mis­takes but just play­ing.  

Ac­cord­ing to the head coach, the team’s biggest strengths are con­nec­tive­ness, depth, shoot­ing the ball, and un­selfish­ness. The team ac­tively builds their re­la­tion­ships from player to player, and with the coaches. As a re­sult, the team is very con­nected and that is proven on the court.  

Over­all, the team is very skilled in their sport, and they ded­i­cate a good amount of time every prac­tice to work on skills and to con­tinue to get bet­ter.  

Of­fen­sively the Men’s Bas­ket­ball team has a chance to com­pete with other good teams in the di­vi­sion. But the team has room for im­prove­ment de­fen­sively.  

Drabyn said, “Its not about records and wins and losses. Its about be­ing the best that we can be. I think there is an­other level the team can go to. Our fo­cus needs to be bet­ter, our abil­ity to fight through fa­tigue and chal­leng­ing mo­ments in games needs to be bet­ter, and the style of play that we are in­cor­po­rat­ing can be bet­ter. We need to con­tinue to prac­tice it and be dili­gent with our work. I’m pleased with where we are at but there is an­other level we can go to so I want to keep push­ing the guys to get there.”