With January play finished, the Occidental men’s basketball team holds a 15-4 record. Two back-to-back overtime wins at the start of the semester have solidified the Tigers’ place at the upper end of the SCIAC division rankings.
Captain Nicky Clotfelter (senior) said he feels hopeful about the rest of the season.
“We’re in a phenomenal spot as far as this season goes,” Clotfelter said. “The most wins I’ve had in a conference season here was eight, in my sophomore year. I remember thinking what it would be like to be on a team that is over .500.”
So far this season, the Tigers are at .778 with seven more regular season games to go.
According to Assistant Coach Kebu Stewart, discipline has been a leading factor behind the team’s record thus far.
“We take it one game at a time,” Stewart said. “We have five weeks left. We want to make them the best five weeks in Oxy Athletics [history].”
Stewart said in a recent game against Claremont McKenna, the Tigers were down 18 points but remained resilient.
“Our guys kept fighting,” Stewart said. “We lost by eight. They didn’t give up, it didn’t matter what the score was.”
Assistant Coach Dominic Maynes said a critical part of the team’s success is how they deal with mistakes.
“We are going to make mistakes,” Maynes said. “But it’s about the mental aspect: how long can you let that sit?”
Maynes said the coaching staff aims to support their players during practices.
“I’m a big believer in confidence building: instilling confidence rather than diminishing it,” Maynes said. “Errors are expected, and almost encouraged, especially in a practice setting.”
In addition, Stewart said the coaching staff places value on working with players as individuals.
“Value them as a person first, and then everything will just connect automatically,” Stewart said. “That’s the trick.”
Coach involvement in the game has increased this year, with changes to NCAA basketball that now include the introduction of a coach challenge to review out-of-bounds calls and basket interference calls, among others.
Maynes said a coach challenging a call necessitates looking at both risk and reward, because the team loses a valuable timeout if the challenge is unsuccessful.
“It’s a fun addition to the game,” Maynes said. “We haven’t used [a challenge] yet, but some of those calls are very quick. You never know what sort of call you’re looking to challenge.”
According to Clotfelter, every call matters.
“All the guys on the team trust our coaches a lot, so any increased involvement from them we love and accept with open arms,” Clotfelter said.
Nasir Luna (sophomore) said resilience played a role in the team’s recent victories.
“No matter who you play, a lot of the games are going to be close,” Luna said. “Back-to-back overtime wins are huge. It not only shows our resilience, but also the composure and poise [we have] played with this year.”
Clotfelter said the team aims to secure their position in the SCIAC playoffs and gain momentum as they enter postseason play.
“All 16 players and five coaches are looking at these last seven games as a stretch where we want to win every single game,” Clotfelter said.
Clotfelter said their home-field advantage provides reason to be optimistic. He said their recent win against Pomona-Pitzer was their first win against the Sagehens since 2020.
“We feel super confident playing the top two teams — Claremont and Redlands — at home,” Clotfelter said. “We’ve only lost one game all season in [Rush Gym].”
Luna said the team really appreciates the support they’ve received thus far, and that they’re looking forward to the last few games.
“We’re really excited about the rest of this year,” Luna said. “The fan support has been amazing. I want to encourage [everybody] … to come out to Rush. That is, [for] the last seven regular season games. We don’t plan to stop there.”
Contact Julian Levy at jlevy@oxy.edu
