By Keanu Haghighi: (@KeanuHaghighi)
SJSU basketball (1-0) looks to build on its stellar start to the season against Notre Dame De Namur after a 24-point victory against Dominican University.
This will be NDSU’s first game of the season and they will be playing this year without any of their starters from the previous year. The most experienced player on the team is senior forward Ty Peacock, who started 10 games for the Argonauts last year averaging 6.8 points and 2 assists per game.
Last year the Argonauts struggled shooting as they only shot 42 percent from the field and a mediocre 29 percent from the three point line. They will definitely look to improve on those numbers heading into their opening game of the 2017-2018 season.
Even though SJSU played well in almost every facet of the game against the Penguins, head coach Jean Prioleau believes there still is room for improvement,
“I thought we turned the ball over little too much. I think we can improve on that,” Prioleau said after the team turned the ball over 23 times in its season opener.
Besides that, the Spartans had a statistically sound game. They shot 52 percent from the field while going 7-9 from beyond the arc. In addition to their phenomenal night shooting, the Spartans had four players in double figures.
Going into their second game, the Spartans want to continue rebounding the ball well while locking the opposition down on defense. Junior guard Jaycee Hillsman believes those are the components to coming out victorious consistently.
“The keys to winning the next game are the same keys we had in our first game and that’s defensive rebounding,” Hillsman said. “Keeping our opponents field goal percentage under 40 and winning the rebound battle by eight.”
San Jose State will host Notre Dame De Namur at 5 p.m. on Sunday in the Event Center.