|  | | Photo by Associated Press
Mount St. Mary's coach Milan Brown directs his team during basketball practice in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, March 20, 2008. Mount St. Mary's plays North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA East Regional on Friday. | | | | |
For the first time since the 1999-2000 season the Mount. St. Mary's men's basketball team has been picked by the Northeast Conference coaches as the league's preseason favorite. Nine of the 11 conference coaches selected the Mountaineers to win. Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own teams. The announcement was made during a media conference call with coaches on Tuesday. Mount St. Mary's was the surprise winner of the Northeast Conference Tournament last season and went on to win its first ever NCAA Tournament game. The Mount has seven of its top eight scorers back, including leading scorer and guard Jeremy Goode. The coaches named Goode to preseason All-NEC team. Last season, the Mount finished fourth in the conference with an 11-7 record and they won three games in the tournament to advance to the NCAA Tournament. They beat Coppin State 69-60 in the NCAA play-in game. They lost to North Carolina in the tournament's opening round and finished with a 19-15 record. Mount coach Milan Brown described his team as eager to not only return to the NCAA Tournament, but to win the NEC regular-season title. "We won three games in March last year, we didn't win the regular season," Brown said. "There are still some goals for us to achieve." This is the third time the Mount has been named the preseason favorite. They were also picked in 1998-1999 and won the title. They were picked the next season, but lost to Robert Morris in the tournament semifinals. Since that year, Mount St. Mary's has not been picked higher than fourth in the preseason poll. Goode, a junior guard, led the Mount in scoring (14.5) and assists (5.5) last year. The only starter not returning is Chris Vann, who averaged 14.4 points a game. | 
