HELENA — Despite dropping to 5-9 overall with a five-point loss to Providence to open their Frontier Conference season, Carroll College men’s basketball players retain belief in one another and in their team.
“We have a lot of trust in each other and in the coaches,” said freshman guard Isaac Round. “And we’re trying to sort of have this mindset of buying into what we’re trying to achieve. And that comes with wins and losses. We’ve had some great wins. We’ve had some bad losses. So, we try to make sure that our mindset stays positive.”
Redshirt junior guard James Lang agreed that the team remains unified despite its losing record 14 games into the season.
“Yeah, we’ve had some great talks in the past couple days and weeks with our players and coaches about how we’ve been in these situations before,” said Lang. “At the beginning of the season, we pushed some great teams to overtime, and we beat some top-25-ranked teams. So, it’s getting back to that position and knowing that we’re capable of winning some of these games even when they’re close.”
The Fighting Saints still have nearly the entirety of their conference schedule to position themselves for a March run.
“We have to just execute and know that we can play with some of the best of the teams, like we showed at the beginning of the season,” said Lang. “So, it’s just getting back to that kind of comfort and knowing that we can play with some of these teams.”
Round explained how the team remains united and committed to its common goal of winning.
“All the players, we have conversations with each other and that sort of thing,” said Round. “So, we just make sure that we’re taking accountability for ourselves and for each other. And trying to have those conversations.”
Carroll dropped to 5-10 on Thursday with a 78-69 loss at Montana Western. The Saints will try to get back in the win column Saturday at Montana Tech.
