By Mike Kuhns
Record Sports Editor
March 11, 2010

EAST STROUDSBURG — Winners: That's the best way to describe East Stroudsburg University's men's basketball roster.

Before each of them came to ESU they were team captains, 1,000-point scorers, won district championships, all-state selections and played for state titles.

They are from Allentown, Philadelphia, Hazleton and the Bronx, N.Y. Some have come hundreds of miles to play at ESU, while freshman and East Stroudsburg North graduate Terrance King calls home less than 20 miles away.

Coach Jeff Wilson recruited them all, and has the Warriors (24-5) participating in just the school's second NCAA Division II Tournament with an opening round game against West Virginia State (28-3).

From the start of preseason camp, Wilson took 13 gifted players, each with special talents, and molded them into something they knew all along — how to win.

"I didn't know how good we were going to do this year," said junior Micah Covert, a junior who played for a high school state championship at Chester High School in Philadelphia. "We were young, but once the season started going along, it was like, we're good. I started expecting more and more and more."

ESU has won with its seniors, it's won with its freshmen and everyone in between. Seniors Andy Heimbach (12.8 points per game) and point guard Robby Pines (8.2 ppg. and 6.4 assists/game) have led the way. Heimbach won three district titles while playing for Allentown Central Catholic, while Pines led Souderton High School to three league titles.

Junior Mike Tobin is second on the team in scoring with 10.3 ppg. Tobin's resume includes being the 2007 Newark Star-Ledger Player of the Year.

The Warriors' roster has nine players who play at least 15 minutes per game or more. The key to the depth has been the play of three freshmen — King (8.9 ppg., 4.6 rpg.), Marcus Brown (7.0 ppg., 5.1 rpg.), Duane Johnson (43.5 percent 3-point shooting leads team) — and sophomore Eric Bryan (5.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg.).

"They all wanted to win, had that will to win," junior guard Mike DeMarco said of the freshmen class. "That's what I saw."

King has been a huge piece of the puzzle. The freshman, a 1,000-point scorer at ES North, started the year with a back injury. He worked through the injury and got on the floor for his first start Nov. 20 in a 101-52 victory over Mercy College.

"I think I scored 18 points," said King, who has been named Freshman of the Week six times this year. "I think that's where (my confidence) started."

It doesn't always work out when good players mix, but this team features a rare chemistry. They went 13-0 to start the season, the longest undefeated streak in school history.

ESU's 19-1 record was the best start in school history, too, and quickly the Warriors were nationally ranked — a status they hadn't achieved since the 1991-92 season.

This wasn't the season ESU was supposed to have, though. The Warriors were picked to finish sixth in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference East preseason poll.

But this team was driven, and beat the likes of West Chester on the road, 88-74, to clinch a share of the PSAC East crown.

"That was the plan," said Covert (7.9 ppg) of the team's success. "You're used to winning. You don't like losing. You're used to winning and that rubs off on everybody else."

Winning, for most of the team, is all they know. Most of ESU's players won in high school, and for the upperclassmen it's all they've known at ESU. The Warriors have enjoyed five straight winning seasons under Wilson (125-95 career record), who is in his eighth season as head coach.

"We all came from great programs," Pines said, "and we wanted to have a great program here and that's what we're doing."

They're winning, something they've known all their lives.