After a 17-game losing streak last season, the San Jose State men’s basketball team is ready for a fresh start. The team struggled with a weak defense and adapting with a second-year head coach.
The Spartans hope to change that this season with stronger play.
The team scored an average of 65.9 points per game while its opponents scored 81.7 points per game in the
2018-19 season.
“We have a primary goal of taking care of the ball. We didn’t take care of the ball last year very well,” head coach Jean Prioleau said.
This season, the team is working on strategies for a stronger defense to improve overall.
“We want to try and play better defense,” Prioleau said. “There are a lot of facets of the game, but the biggest thing is to try not to turn the ball over.”
SJSU’s highest scoring player last season was then-junior forward Michael Steadman, who averaged 13.2 points per game.
However, he will not be returning to the court this season as a Spartan. Steadman transferred to the University of Montana to continue his college basketball career.
“I think given our high-low just how much we emphasized getting the bigs the ball, I think that worked really well for us last year with [Steadman],” senior point guard Brae Ivey said.
Ivey said that he hopes the team can continue to incorporate that strategy in plays because it was game plan that worked in the team’s favor last season.
However, it was not enough to have a successful year.
“We only won 4 games last year, so there is no like ‘Hey we are waiting for this game,’ ”Prioleau said. “Every game is a rival game.”
Some of the challenges that the Spartans may also face this new season are a mostly inexperienced team and a fairly new coach.
This season the team also includes seven underclassmen and one redshirt junior.
“It’s about the process. It’s working on the things we would like to improve on,” Prioleau said. “If we do that and lose, at least we know we are getting better in one department.”
Prioleau spent 17 seasons as an assistant in the NCAA, working for seven different schools before coming to SJSU as a first-time head coach in 2017.
“I think we were all just trying to figure things out,” Ivey said. “We had 9 new guys and a relatively new coach and I mean that’s going to take time to grow. It doesn’t happen in one day [or] one season.”
Despite of the lack of experience and time to grow as a team, Prioleau sees his team with potential to improve this upcoming season.
“We have a good group of kids. We are going to compete and we are going to play as hard as we can every single day,” Prioleau said.
The team is going into the season with the motivation to play to the best of their abilities while making other teams look out for the Spartans.
“One of my goals this season is to be undefeated at home. Really just protect our house and let our opponents know when they come here, it’s gonna be a tough environment to play in,” sophomore point guard Trey Smith said.
