Going a whole season without food will do that.

CRISSY PASQUAL / Union-Tribune Orange Glen basketball coach Mark Pixley talked with his team before Wednesday's game against Ramona. The Orange Glen team went 0-25 last year, but they have a new coach this year and are 9-7 to start this season.

Last season, the Patriots suffered through a 25-game desert sojourn, sans manna. Twenty-five games. Twenty-five losses. One long off-season.

“You could tell from the mood going into every game,” said senior Sharif Tartir, “that we had the previous loss on our minds. We couldn't get off that, and it affected the way we played the next game and the next game.”

Week in and week out, the losses built. Some were blowouts, some nail-biters. The result was always the same.

Fittingly, the season's final game was a heartbreaker, a tree that stood out from a painful forest of losses.

“Valley Center in overtime,” junior Feras Tartir said. “We lost by a point or two. I missed the last shot; that's all I remember.”

Fast-forward nine months, and Orange Glen (9-7) is in fast-forward. Practice looks like a track meet. The Patriots run after they rebound. They run after they turn the ball over. They run before, during and after practice. The Patriots are running away from last year's debacle, and opponents are having trouble keeping up.

CRISSY PASQUAL / Union-Tribune Orange Glen junior Feras Tartir, seen here during play against Ramona on Wednesday, says "It's the exact same team as last year, almost, but somehow we're playing a lot better."

The players, though, aren't the only ones starting fresh.

When Pixley got a teaching position at Orange Glen, the former Carlsbad girls basketball coach was curious. He was curious to see if his methods would work with a boys program. Curious to see if he could turn around a team – virtually unchanged from last season – that didn't produce a win.

“I was hired in June, and in the summer, I had a core of six or seven players,” Pixley said. “I could take them, and we weren't winning a lot during the summer, but we were taking steps. I knew that when the season started, we'd pretty much be right where we needed to be.”

So how does a team go from oh-fer to 9-7?

“The intensity in practice is almost game-speed,” Sharif said. “That's the biggest difference.”

On a team where 5-foot, 10-inch junior Andy Early is often asked to out-rebound players 8 inches taller, effort is the Patriots' competitive advantage.

“I told them, 'I don't know how you guys got through going 0-25, but what shows for me is that if you came back from that, you have a lot of heart,'” Pixley said. “Anybody that came back from that and wants to win and do well can play for me any time.”

Between the lines, the Orange Glen formula is simple. Four quarters of running and pressure. The Patriots dare their opponents to take a play off, and when they do, it's a layup.

“Basketball is basically running from one end of the court to the other, and I think we've gotten pretty good at that,” Early said. “The better conditioned team's probably going to win.”

It's not that Orange Glen is faster or stronger than its opponents; the Patriots aren't. It's just that they don't know when to stop running. After steals. After defensive rebounds. Heck, after made baskets by the opponent, Orange Glen is on the attack, always looking for two points another team is willing to throw away.

“We don't look at ourselves as underdogs, but if teams are going to take us lightly, we're going to show up and play as hard as we can,” Pixley said. “I think every coach, win or loss, has said we out-hustled them.”

All that running has done more than win games. It has elevated the Patriots' sights. A year ago, Orange Glen just wanted to win a game. Now, they want to win a playoff game.

“We were young (last year), and we were inexperienced,” Sharif said. “We see that we're a different team. We don't compare ourselves to last year.”

Neither does their coach, who seldom makes mention of last season's disappointment. Instead, Pixley and his players have their eyes focused forward, where they'll be ready for the next bounce pass and fast-break layup.

“It's the exact same team as last year, almost, but somehow we're playing a lot better,” Feras said. “It's a completely different mood. I don't just want to make the playoffs, I want to make playoffs and do something – upset a good team or something like that.”

With nine wins to their credit and a wide-open Valley League ahead of them, the Patriots are at full speed, last season getting ever fainter in the rear view mirror.

“There's no reason not to dream big,” Pixley said.”

A sign the nightmare's finally over.

 Zach Jones: (760) 752-6751; zach.jones@tlnews.net