| | | Mount set to play for NEC title | | By Bob Blubaugh, Carrol County Times Staff Writer | | | |  | Kyle Nosal/Staff Photo Mount St. Mary’s guard Jeremy Goode drives to the basket during Thursday’s Northeast Conference Tournament quarterfinal win over Quinnipiac.
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Perhaps a few basketball fans across the nation will be surprised to see fourth-seeded Mount St. Mary’s playing in the Northeast Conference Tournament championship game tonight, particularly given the Mountaineers’ 0-4 start and a midseason slump that left them at 10-13.
The players say they aren’t surprised, however.
“Oh, no, I never doubted it,” sophomore point guard Jeremy Goode said. “I thought we could do this last year.”
They fell in the semifinals last season, but after upsetting top-seeded Robert Morris on Sunday, the Mountaineers (17-14) face third-seeded Sacred Heart (18-13) tonight on ESPN2, one win away from their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1999.
And they’ll actually be the hotter team, having won seven of their last eight.
All according to plan, Goode said, from the first time coach Milan Brown met with the team in the preseason.
“When we came to the meetings in August, coach sat the team down and said these are our goals, this is what we want to get accomplished,” Goode said. “And from that moment on, everybody had it in their heads that we can do this.
“Once you believe you can do something, a lot of times, it’s going to happen.”
Goode has been a big reason why it’s happening.
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