After a 3-8 conference record in their 2012-13 campaign, the men’s basketball team is looking to turn things around in head coach Ben Widner’s second season, according to senior captain Danny Nikitas.

With seven returning seniors, including two returning starters, Nikitas and center Connor McCarthy, there’s a lot of experience on this Titan team, according to Nikitas.

“There are some verbal leaders, but most of [the seniors] lead by example,” Nikitas said. “[We want to] set an example for each other and the [rest of the team].”

Widner also believes that this year’s team has a very strong class of senior leaders.

“It’s not just that they’re seniors, but there are very good leaders in that class too which is very helpful,” Widner said. “They want to win, they want to compete, and they care very much about the team. They want it to be together, they want to work together, they want both seniors and juniors and the one sophomore we have to feel like they are all going for the same objective.”

The Titans started their season with a second place finish at the Loyola-New Trier Thanksgiving tournament with victories over Lake Forest and Prosser before losing in the championship game to the 17th ranked team in the state, Loyola. Senior captain Johnny Cowhey attributed the team’s success to their defense.

“In the pool play we played really well defensively,” Cowhey said. “Our goal is to hold every team we play to under 50 points and we did that in three out of the four games we played in that tournament.”

On Dec. 6, the Titans hosted Glenbrook North in the Titan Dome and came out with a 44-34 victory over the Spartans for the first time since 2009. Widner credits his team’s defense as the main reason for the win.

“We got great defense out of every position on the floor,” Widner said. “One of their first plays of the game [the Spartans] ran one of their favorite sets. [Cowhey] called out the screen early, [McCarthy] fought through the screen and then [Cowhey’s] man receives a double screen. [Cowhey] fought through that perfectly. They didn’t get any of the three looks that they were looking for on that set.”

Cowhey also believes that the defense was the key reason why the Titans won.

“[Coach Widner] wrote on the board, before the game: play defense together, win together,” Cowhey said. “There was great rotation and North [would have] what looked like an open layup, [and it] would end up being a charge. We took two charges in the second half so there were a lot of key defensive plays.”

Nikitas stressed a couple of goals for the team for the rest of the season. According to Nikitas, there are numerous things the Titans need to do in order to keep their focus for the rest of the season.

“We need to stay positive no matter what because sometimes we get down on ourselves and on each other, which is not good,” Nikitas said. “We need to defend well every game. If we defend we will always be in games no matter what our offense is like.”

One of the goals that Cowhey emphasized was to win conference. This was the main goal made by the team, according to Cowhey.

“We’ve beaten every team in the conference before, so we feel like if we keep playing the way we can play we can beat any team in the conference,” Cowhey said.

According to Nikitas, the Titans are led by a myriad of seniors including McCarthy, Cowhey, forward Devin Maki and guard Paul Jones.

The Titans next hit the court over winter break at the Wheeling Hardwood Classic starting on Dec. 23.