Basketball exhibitions underway

After the 2012-13 season, the Pacific Men’s Basketball Team found themselves sitting in fifth place in the Northwest Conference, with a 15-10 overall record.

Even though it wasn’t a championship, the Boxers found a lot of positives from last season that they hope to build on as the 2013-14 season begins.

Although the score didn’t come out in favor of the Boxers in the first game of the season on Nov. 10, the Men’s Basketball Team showed signs of what is yet to come.

In this first matchup, the Boxers traveled to Cheney, Wash. to play the Division I Eastern Washington University Eagles.

Despite the 87-58 loss, Pacific had three players shoot for double digits.

One of those leading the team was junior Mitch Wettig.

Wettig shot seven for nine in the field while hitting four of six shots from behind the three-point arc, giving him an 18 point total.

Senior Daniel Zitani and sophomore Landon Littlefield both contributed a fair amount as well, totaling 16 and 11 points respectively.

The Boxers were never able to take complete control of the game, but were never behind by an unreasonable amount up until the last few minutes of the fourth quarter.

Perhaps one of the biggest positives that came from the loss was a chance for the team to see where they stand as a group.

“There is a lot of chemistry among this team, but at the same time we are building trust within each other every day,” said Zitani.

“I think some challenges for us come up when we aren’t doing as well as we thought,” said Zitani. “We still keep fighting and believe in each other that we will win the game. If everybody stays on the same page I think that is going to get us to overcome anything we face this year.”

Next, Pacific will travel to La Verne, Calif. for a second exhibition game.

In total, they will have played ten non-conference games, on the road and at home, in order to prepare for league play starting in early January.

“We’re building one day at a time, we’re not looking into the future so quickly, but a conference title is all we are expecting out of this year and nothing less,” said Zitani.