Though the Sacramento State men’s basketball team is out of playoff contention for this season, the team still feels like it had a successful season and also a bright future moving forward.

“We’ve just been trying to get better every year,” said senior guard Sultan Toles-Bey. “Unfortunately, we can’t make the playoffs. We worked hard everyday. There was just a couple of games we didn’t show up, didn’t compete because of a lack of energy.”

Sac State’s overall record is 7-21, and the men are 4-12 within the Big Sky Conference.

“We definitely wanted playoffs,” said freshman guard Jackson Carbajal. “It’s a little bit of a disappointment, but we just try to get better everyday. We started to play better at the end of the year, and we played more like a team. We definitely improved from the beginning of the year.”

When asked about his thoughts on the season, head coach Brian Katz simply said, “We were so close, yet so far.”

No matter how cliché the saying may be, this was the theme throughout most of the season for the Hornets.

“If you were going to run a headline, we were so close to many games,” Katz said. “We lost four (games) in overtime and I think we lost seven or eight on the last play of the game. You look at the record, 7-20, and it is deceiving from that point of view.”

Losing that amount of close and contested games would not only hurt a team’s standings, but it can also hurt the players’ confidence in future competitions as well.

“When you lose a couple of those, it affects you mentally,” said senior forward Duro Bjegovic. “It could have easily been a good season. If we got half those games, we would be in good shape.”

Toles-Bey emphasized that that the team’s main focus this season was to improve on the court, both as individuals and as a team.

“We’re gelling, getting better everyday, even at this point,” Toles-Bey said. “We just had a lot of growing to do, this season.”

Coming into the season, the Hornets were the most inexperienced team in the Big Sky Conference, which may have hurt them in terms of their win-loss totals this season, Katz said.

“Heading into the league, we only had three guys with Division 1 experience,” he said. “Next year all these guys will have experience, which is a real plus. We’ve only been blown out two games all year and the bottom line is with us competing and being close in so many games, we can build on the experience and success we had late in the season.”

All but two seniors will be returning. Bjegovic said the team next year will be much more cohesive as a unit and hopefully improve from this season.

“We had a lot of freshmen this year so it was a year of experience for them,” Bjegovic said. “I think they’re going to be a good team because they already know how to play with each other. Just incorporate some new guys and they can get rolling.”

Carbajal learned a great deal this season he can use to benefit the team moving in forward.

Aside from getting stronger in the weight room and working on his handles on the court, Carbajal said playing in this type of division requires a significant amount of demand.

“We have to deal with not only physical pressure, but a lot of mental pressure as well because every one is up on you,” Carbajal said.

You can reach Anthony Honrade at [email protected]