Mocs Open for Real Tonight

[E.T.]

Published Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Mocs Open for Real Tonight

By Rick Brown

The Ledger

LAKELAND -- The Florida Southern Mocs men's basketball team entered practice for the 2005-06 season thinking it had more offensive firepower. After averaging 103 points in two exhibition games, it appears the coaches could be correct.

But those were exhibition games against all-star teams. Starting tonight, FSC begins to find out how it performs against real competition.

The revamped Mocs take on Florida Memorial tonight at 7:30 at Jenkins Field House in the season-opening game for FSC.

"Offensively, we've showed a lot of firepower and a lot of weapons," said FSC coach Tony Longa. "It's a good thing to have because we've struggled scoring the last two years."

Last year, FSC averaged 66.7 points per game, which was ranked 223rd out of 266 teams in Division II.

This year, with the addition of Dwayne Abraham, Michael Simms, Dale Parsons and Andrei Grant, as well as the return of sophomore Hurley Dunbar, Longa feels better about his squad offensively.

The rest of the Sunshine State Conference, however, is skeptical about the Mocs, placing them in a tie for fourth in the SSC Preseason Poll.

"If you have pretty good guards, then you have a chance to be pretty good," Longa said. "We are very talented but we have to prove it and show it night in and night out."

Also, the new players will have to adjust to FSC's defensive system. Despite a 17-11 record last year, FSC was third in Division II in field-goal percentage defense (.385 percent) and eighth in scoring defense (61.6).

"We have to get a lot better defensively," he said Monday. "That has been a trademark of our team being good defensively."

FMC, an NAIA school that plays in the Florida Sun Conference, along with Webber and Warner Southern, has never beaten FSC in eight games but has played the Mocs tough the last three meetings, losing by eight points or fewer.

This will be the Lions' fifth game this season. FMC enters with a 3-1 record.