No team ever wants to lose two consecutive games. But based on the way the men’s basketball team has bounced back this season, senior Will Gaskins said the Bombers aren’t worried about their current two-game losing streak.

“People around the area that are buying a lot into us losing two games in a row, they’re going to be eating their words in a couple of days when we come back out and go up against Alfred [University] and Nazareth [College],” Gaskins said. “We lost two games, but it’s not the end of the world.”

The team’s current two-game losing streak is only the Blue and Gold’s third this season, and they have never lost more than two games in a row. Each time they’ve lost two consecutive games, they’ve come back with authority.

After the Bombers’ first two-loss stretch, they went on for a season high eight-game win streak. Following their three-point loss to Utica College on Jan. 12, the Bombers went on a three-game tear.

“You can tell a lot from a team based on how they perform after a loss,” junior Chris Cruz-Rivas said. “Obviously we had two, and I think we’re going to come out and win the next two games just because we’re a team who doesn’t like to have our backs against the wall.”

The Bombers have fought from behind in both winning and losing efforts. In the Blue and Gold’s last game, they cut a 12-point lead down to two in the last two minutes of the game, but eventually lost 77–73 to Rochester Institute of Technology.

“We’ve just been digging ourselves holes,” senior Tom Brown said. “We’ve let other teams get ahead of us because we think we can come back because we’ve done it so many times, but we can’t do that. We have to play with more energy the entire game.”

At this point in the season, the Bombers will have only played three games in two weeks after they take on Alfred on Friday. Cruz-Rivas said the team tries not to think about the time between games, though.

“Obviously it’s not as exciting as first semester when we had a bunch of games back-to-back,” he said. “Having a big spread between games, some people lose focus. Not playing in game situations is tough on us, especially when we get back on the court — it feels a lot different.”

With playoffs looming and the Bombers currently holding a 6–4 record in conference, Brown said the Bombers have to start coming out with more energy to win down the stretch.

“We have to win our next few games because now we’re in fourth place in the conference,” he said. “Every game from here on out is really big.”

Despite the past couple of losses, Cruz-Rivas said he is confident the team will pull it together.

“Coming off a loss, everyone’s obviously not too happy about it, but I always say I feel bad for the next team we play after we lose because with the fire power we have on our team, who knows what we’re going to do to the next team,” he said.

Box Score - Ithaca vs RIT (01/31/10 at Clark Gym, Rochester, NY)