AACC Men’s Basketball is off to a rough start this season.

But according to guard Damir Mahmutagic, it’s a “new year, new season” for the Riverhawks.

“We’re going through our trials and tribulations right now but we’re still pushing and playing hard,” said Mahmutagic.

“We got to trust each and every one of our players in order to look past how the first part of the season went. We need to play as a family.”

Second-year guard Miles Dobson said his team is doing “pretty good” and is ready to continue the season.

“We care about the game and we want to win,” said Dobson.

“We have to work on small things like rebounding and transition defense. We play together. We stay together. And we play good team defense.”

Forward Clint Smith said he believes in a “new year, new mindset” mentality.

“We got to start winning ball games,” said Smith.

“We can shoot the ball pretty well. We got effort but we got to have effort through all 40 minutes regardless if we win or lose. We got some good players. We can definitely play together. We just have to trust each other through all 40 minutes.”

Despite the record, head coach Joe Snowden said his team is playing with effort.

“Because we’re so young, regardless of the record, they’re participating, they’re playing hard,” said Snowden.

“Second half, we have to improve on rebounding, better man-to-man defense, and they got to start trusting each other a little bit more. We really have been shooting the ball great. They shoot threes well.

They set up each other well. Offensively they’re there as [far as] growth. Defensively not yet.”

The Riverhawks have an away game on Jan. 17 and they have nine games left in the regular season.