The Bainbridge Bearcats basketball team had a rough December, but is optimistic for the New Year and the meat of its schedule on the horizon.

The Bearcats lost to Wayne County 43-33 last Thursday and fell to South Cobb 70-52 the next day. Bainbridge is 4-12 on the season, a position it founds itself in around this time last year when the Bearcats were at 3-12 and went on to make the playoffs.

It has been up and down,” Coach Terry Smith said. “We have moments where we play well and moments where we don’t. It goes back to practice. I got to do a better job at practice.”

Bainbridge is 0-2 in region play and kicks off the next leg of its region schedule this Friday against Veterans at home. After that, Bainbridge will host Cairo next Friday before hosting Harris County on Jan. 20.

The Bearcats got back in the gym Tuesday after a short break and will go back to working on fundamentals, Smith said. With the games they have lost coming from turnovers or lack of defense, Smith believes he can correct a lot of that with the extra practice time.

“We’re a couple of minutes and a couple of plays away from being a .500 team or better,” Smith said.

Smith said his players understand there is still a chance to turn the season around and make the playoffs with the bulk of the region schedule coming throughout January.

“I really think they do,” Smith said. “I go back to last year. Last year at this time we had won three games. We are in the same situation that we were last year. We just have to keep plugging away. We have to play hard.”

Bainbridge tips off against Veterans Friday at 7:30 p.m.