While the Chico State men's basketball team's 2018–19 senior class may be small, consisting of just three players, it's a tight-knit group that has been playing together since the trio redshirted together in 2014–15.
 
Keith Datu, Marvin Timothy, and Nate Ambrosini are the three seniors who will be honored Saturday prior to the final regular season home game when the Wildcats take on Sonoma State at Acker Gym.
 
Timothy and Ambrosini will be on the court for their final appearances on the hardwood. Datu will be cheering his teammates on from the Wildcats' bench with the aid of crutches, his left knee wrapped and held steady by a brace.
 
Datu was warming up for the team's December 8 matchup with Cal State East Bay when he jumped up for a routine dunk. He jumped, but came right down to the floor screaming in pain. He had ruptured his patellar tendon and ligament in his left knee.
 
"To be completely honest, they were playing his music (he made) when he fell and at first I thought he slipped, so at first I'm smiling a little bit," said Timothy, Datu's roommate and best friend. "But once he fell he starts yelling, and it's a different kind of scream. And I'm like oh, wow."
 
Suddenly, the senior season he had been anticipating was over. He had attempted his final dunk with the Wildcats.

 
"I hate to admit but I had some real tears for a couple weeks," Datu said. "Until I finally got my head up and focused on the future."
 
He remembers Ambrosini coming over the next day. Timothy mentioned Wildcats' head coach Greg Clink brought breakfast burritos for Datu and Timothy the morning after.
 
"Just a freaky thing and unfortunate obviously," Clink said. "He was just starting to play really well for us and contributing. It was devastating for him and for us. We're down to nine guys and we've had two of our veteran post players go down now with knee injuries."
 
Datu had surgery on December 12 and is expected to fully recover in six months to a year, according to his surgeon. In his absence from the court, he rediscovered a previous love.
 
He has found himself with more time to use his keyboards, microphones, and other recording equipment to produce music.
 
Datu's mother signed him up for piano lessons in second grade. It was a start of what has become a lifelong hobby.
 
Thanks to the fundamentals of piano, Datu has taught himself the basics of guitar, and at age 13, played saxophone with his mother in an orchestra at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria.
 
From there, he turned his musical interests into making beats in high school with his keyboard and microphone.
 
While Datu has been making music since his junior year of high school, during his last two years at Chico he has started to once again take making music more seriously.
 
When singing, Datu goes by the artist name Keith Da2. He has recorded over 200 songs, releasing just 19 on major streaming platforms (YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud, etc.).
 
He said that while some songs are just fun or beats meant to play at a party, others have meaning. Those with meaning are the ones Datu has put out into the world.

 
"I figured these songs were ready to be heard and people will like them," Datu said. "Some of them have a message. I try to be really open but also really truthful in everything I say."
 
Datu's interest in music and influences range on a wide scale. His favorite artists are Drake and J. Cole, but he recalled a time in high school when a coach at a tournament asked him to sing. It was New York themed so he decided to sing "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra and then rapped Jay Z's "Empire State of Mind."
 
Datu released one song on Father's Day 2018, titled, "Father's Day." It is one of the most emotional songs he has written, he said. The song is about his love for his father despite growing up in a single parent household without his father around.
 
"I would like him to hear it but I feel like it might make him cry," Datu said. "It just talks about how he was never there for me yet I love him anyways."
 
Datu has used music as a way to help bond the team.
 
Timothy said the team's comradery is better than he's ever seen in his five years at Chico State.
 
"If you have a great relationship with someone off the court, you're gonna have a pretty solid relationship with them on the court," Timothy said.
 
Thanks to Datu's music equipment, the pair's house has become a central location for teammates to come and record, rap, sing, or just hang out.
 
Datu says Josh Lavergne may be the most talented rapper on the team. The two have performed at a couple open mics in Chico including one at Naked Lounge.
 
Recording at Datu and Timothy's house has brought in other teammates such as Isaiah Brooks, Justin Briggs, and Kevin Warren, even if it's just for fun or wanting to hear themselves recorded.
 
Datu is firm in saying he is not a DJ or rapper. He prefers the term musical producer.
 
"I'm more of a guy that likes to listens to lyrics rather than the beat that's playing," Datu said. "I think our generation now is geared more towards people saying nonsense but having a cool beat and partying to it, and that's cool and all, but my go-to is really listening to what people say. I like real lyricists rather than real beat makers."
 
Datu, who graduates in the spring with a bachelor's degree in exercise physiology, says the thing he will miss most about Chico is the time with his team. He has several options available, including graduate school, but isn't sure what's next quite yet.  
His past 4-5 years are captured in his music, most specifically in a song he released in June 2017.
 
Prior to the start of his junior season Datu released a song titled "My Time." In the song he describes his time with his teammates and his time playing basketball and learning to grind harder.
 
"Never learned from my father, had to do it on my own, now I'm never alone."
 
In the chorus, he finishes with his favorite lyrics of the song.
 
"Got my team on my back now, hate now, bet you come back around, you gonna know my sound, the blessings rain down causes it's my time, my time, my time, been on my grind."
 
Whatever path Datu chooses after graduation, he promises to remain in touch with all his coaches at Chico State, including one of the most influential people to him during his time at Chico State, Coach Clink.
 
"He's just got a great heart, he's sincere, he's faced a lot of adversity in his life," Clink said, "and he's just done a great job overcoming and fighting through it and becoming just such a success. I'm just really proud of him."
 
For Datu, music is definitely a love, however it hasn't exactly taken the place of basketball in his absence from the court.
 
"If music were to take off, I'd be all for it, but basketball's where my heart's at," Datu said.