Last season the Bacone Warriors men’s basketball didn’t start out the year quite like coach Alan Foster wanted as the squad began at 1-5 in the first semester before rebounding to finish at 12-17 and 9-9 in the Red River conference.

One of the factors that hampered the success for Bacone was incorporating a new batch of players into the fold according to the Warrior coach.

“We had Ronnie Battle and Chad Tyler back but we still had a lot of new people that were new to the program,” he said. “I think that was part of what caused us to get off to a slow start, we were good but we weren’t good enough.”

Another thing that Foster hopes to correct this upcoming season is last year’s squad inability to close out tight games. The Warriors had nine losses decided by six points or less, with five of those being three points or less.

“In those games we had a few possessions, whether they were offense or defense that we didn’t do what we needed to do to come out with victories,” the coach said. “You’re going to have close games in the conference and that’s what separates the better teams in the conference, are those that find a way to win those close games.”

Battle said those losses could be reversed this year by the squad playing up to their potential.

“A lot of the stuff was little mistakes, not making free throws, not playing defense,” the junior said. “We did good, we just couldn’t play the whole 40 minutes like we could. We’re going to fix the mistakes this year.”

All those lessons learned, coupled with the experience, should boost Bacone this season, Foster said.

In addition to the return of Battle, who made 3rd team NAIA All-American while averaging 23.5 points, the squad also brings back Tyler, who was their second leading scorer at 15.8 points a season ago.

Also returning this year include guards Josh Elix, Milen Brown and post players Marcus Logan along with Jonathan Weekes. Foster also brought in more depth, adding Terrance Roby, Rashad Danzy and Dallas Juneil to the squad.

“It’s not just Ronnie and Chad that are back it’s also a core group of six people that are back,” the Warrior coach said. “What’s really been nice is we’ve added recruits at key spots. I feel like we’ve not just added bodies but added the right people at the right spots that give us depth at every spot on the floor.”

For Tyler this season with the returning experience and the addition of some talent recruits he thinks they can go deeper in the post season.

“I think we’ll start off playing well at first,” the junior guard said. “We’ll get better as the season goes along and go further and actually win the conference this year.”