ESU On Top of PSAC East

BY COLLEEN RUPP

SC Staff Writer

The ESU Men’s Basketball team is well known on our campus.  Everyone goes to the games, and they are always the highlight of our Warrior pride as fall turns to spring. This season, the Warriors are looking to build off of the success of last season.

They are currently in first place in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC).

After advancing to the second round of the NCAA Division II Tournament last season, the Warriors are looking to furtheir success in the 2013-2014 season.

In 2012 the Warriors won the PSAC East title, and were first in the PSAC last season in scoring offense.

Warriors head coach Jeff Wilson, who is in his eleventh year as head coach, has won at least 16 games in the past eight seasons, and the team is 82-37 in the last four seasons.

This year’s team consists of a combination of multiple All-American players, as well as several new players who have promising potential.

Only two of last year’s top five scorers, junior guard Whis Grant and junior point guard Matt Tobin, returned for the 2013-2014 season.  Grant received the PSAC East Athlete of the Year award last season and was also the first All-American from ESU since Lonnie White back in 1993.

Tobin, who was the first player to start all 29 games for the Warriors last season, ranked second in PSAC East in assists (3.6 per game) and assist-turnover ratio (1.4) in his first season at ESU.

Two new competitors, Pitt-Johnstown and Seton Hill,  have been added to the PSAC West Division this year. The Warriors will travel to Johnstown to take on the Mountain Cats on January 8 at 7:30 PM.

The Warriors also find themselves ranked #23 in the most recent NABC Division II Coaches Poll for the week of November 26.

It is the fourteenth week that the  men’s basketball team has been ranked, and the earliest that the team has been ranked in school history.

With their history of winning, and the leadership of Whis Grant,  Matt Tobin, and the rest of the upperclassmen, the team is looking to once agiain make the Warrior community proud.

Email Colleen at:

cer1810@live.esu.edu