The NC State men’s club basketball team headed to nationals this past weekend feeling confident after winning its past 10 games and winning back-to-back regional championships. The team fell to Georgia Tech, 61-46 in the second round of the bracket after defeating its first opponent, Ohio State, 62-53. The team had to push through obstacles concerning its three injured teammates.

Senior co-president TJ Minetola had an ankle injury that prevented him from competing in nationals.

“It sucks, I wish I could go,” Minetola said. “I got hurt two tournaments ago and I’m just waiting for my ankle to heal.”

Even though the team had only eight players from each team attending, co-president Matt Hartl said he was still confident going into this tournament.

“We’ve won our last 10 games and we’ve won the last two tournaments,” Hartl said. “We’re pretty confident going into it. We played in a regional tournament through the same league a couple weekends ago and went 5-1 in it, losing in the championship. I think I like our odds this weekend.”

Part of this confidence came from the players’ experience itself. Hartl and Minetola have three years under their belts in playing club basketball for NC State.

“We have a lot of experienced players,” Hartl said. “A lot of the guys on me and TJ’s team, called team Wolf, they’re juniors and seniors. A lot of guys on team Pack, which is the other team, they’re more sophomores and juniors, some freshmen even.”

Yet with the experience from upperclassmen, the co-presidents don’t want this to deter incoming freshmen or a student who doesn’t have as much experience from trying out.

“The opportunity to play club basketball, I would recommend it to anyone really,” Hartl said. “It’s just another opportunity to keep being competitive in the sport you love.”

The two co-presidents have even tried to open up the club to more of the students on campus.

“In the past we haven’t had two teams; we’ve only had one team,” Hartl said. “So it’s been very exclusive, only a certain amount of players, 10 to 12 in the entire school could be on it which is super exclusive. We’re trying to expand that now. We have two teams this year and there are about 10 players on each team and we also had a couple practice players on each team.”