The Brock men's and women's basketball teams begin the second leg of their 2018-19 campaign when they return to the hardcourt on Saturday, Jan. 5 when they travel to London to play the Western Mustangs.

First-year head coaches Madhav Trivedi (men's basketball) and Mike Rao (women's basketball) weigh in on their team's start to the year and what they expect moving forward.

The men's team is currently tied with Western for second place in the OUA's West Division with a 7-4 record. The women's squad (4-7) has a good chance to improve their fifth-place standing when they face the Mustangs (1-10).

Although the men's basketball team has a lot of returning players from last year, they still have a handful of new faces to the team.

"Even some guys from last year are stepping into new roles, bigger roles," said Trivedi. "On top of all of that, there's a whole new coaching staff. If you look at to where we started to where we are now. You can kind of see the slow and steady growth of improvement from our team."

The Badgers are a team that's been tested this season. Brock endured a rocky pre-season record, but each contest was close and as they advanced through the regular season those razor-thin losses turned into victories.

"I learned very early with this group that they don't quit," said Trivedi. "You can see their work ethic in the classroom, weight room and film room. The good thing is that there's a lot of room for improvement. Our staff is really excited to zero in on the smaller details of our offence, of our defence. We can start plugging some holes and tightening up some screws just so we can be more efficient in the right situation and peak at the right time."

Meanwhile, the women's team have experienced a roller coaster first half and are only two victories away from tying last year's win total.

"I would say that the first half of the season was trying to find our identity," said Rao. "We have tried to do that through effort. I can not nor do I wish to change any part of the season so far."

After losing three consecutive games to start the season, the Badgers bounced back with three consecutive victories in November before their schedule lined them up against three nationally-ranked opponents, yet they capped off the year with a 75-73 win over York.

"We are continuing to juggle our line up either because of injury or out of necessity. We are going to continue on the plan we identified early in the season. Obviously, our plan continues to change weekly, but our effort is non negotiable," said Rao. "We will continue to fight defensively and attack the basket at every opportunity."

The Brock basketball teams spend their next five games on the road (Western, Laurier, Waterloo, Guelph and Windsor), which you can stream online at OUA.tv, and return for back-to-back home games versus Algoma on Jan. 25-26.

Tickets for Brock Badgers home games can be purchased on brocku.universitytickets.com.