MU men's hoops/story for Thursday Press

By TONY GRAHAM
STAFF WRITER


WEST LONG BRANCH …
Still in search of that first
Northeast Conference road victory.

That remains the rather unbelievable plight of the Mon
mouth University men's bas
ketball team (10-13, 5-6), which
will try again tonight to snap
out of its NEC road funk (0-5)
when it visits Wagner (9-13,
6-5).

""One and 10 (Monmouth's
overall road record), zero and
five conference, wow - ''said
Monmouth senior forward De
jan Delic prior to Wednesday's
practice at Boylan Gym.

" ""We've got to stop it and
we've got to stop it now,'' he
said. "'Because if we're going to
win the (NEC Tournament)
championship it's going to happen on the road.

""So we have to start doing it
now.''

Delic said the Hawks have
been going through a wide
range of emotions in the wake
of Monday night's come-from-
way-ahead defeat at Farleigh
Dickinson.

""Depressed a little bit, but
ticked off mainly,'' he said.
""Angry at how we let the game
go.

""What goes around comes
around. Since we let them
come back in the game I think
we kind of deserved that last
second shot (by Manny Ubilla).

""I would still take our shot
from last year (Chris Kenny's
NEC Tournament) winning layup over theirs during the reg
ular season.''

Delic also saw a silver lining
in the Monday cloud. ""I'm pretty confident the way we played,
while we played for the first 30
minutes,'' he said. ""I still think
we are probably the most talented team in the league.

Delic said he feels, despite
Monday's setback, Monmouth
is on the verge of making an
NEC charge.

"I'm really confident we're
going to make a good run here
late in the season,'' he said.

One team already on a bit of
a good run is the Seahawks
who have won four of their last
five games including a sweep of
Long Island U. which has hand
ed Monmouth it's only NEC
home setback.

Wagner is riding a season
long three game winning
streak after its 80-76 victory
Monday over Sacred Heart.

Led by a career high 24
points from junior James Ulrich, who also added 10 re
bounds for his fourth career
double-double, the Seahawks
scored 80 points for the fourth
time in the last five games.

Monmouth coach Dave Callo
way said the Hawks need to
play "Monmouth basketball" (efficient offense, tight match up
zone defense) on a consistent
basis.

""When we do that, historically, we win more than we lose,''
he said. "'Right now we haven't
been winning more than we've
been losing. That would lead
me to believe, in watching tape
and our performance, we're not
doing it the way we have historically have done it over the
years. ""We have shown signs of
it, but not on a consistent basis.''

""There's no ifs and or
buts,''said Delic echoing what
has become a somewhat familiar Monmouth refrain as the
road defeats have mounted.
""We can't allow any more losses.''

tonygsports@aol.com.