Men's Basketball

Seniors spark St. Michael's

By John A. Fantino
Free Press Staff Writer

December 14, 2007
Brian Monahan maneuvers his 6-foot-6, 210-pound frame into the paint and knocks down buckets at a rate more rapid than any other player in the Northeast-10 Conference.

Go ahead and converge on him. He'll kick the ball out to James Sorrentine, a 3-point-shooting assassin.

The St. Michael's College men's basketball team is off to an impressive 6-2 start, and to the surprise of many, has climbed as high as 19th in the Division II national rankings.

The Purple Knights' senior captains are leading the charge.

"Brian is such an inside threat and James is such a great perimeter shooter," said Tom O'Shea, St. Michael's veteran head coach. "Obviously, they are our two best players; they really complement each other well."

They also share a mission: Prove those responsible for the Knights' plummeting to 14th in the Northeast-10 preseason coaches' poll wrong.

"We didn't want to get too hung up on it, but we have used it every day in practice as motivation," Monahan said. "We've had a chip on our shoulder every day and it has been paying off."

SMC went 16-13 last season, its first winning record in six years. After watching two starters and nearly half of that team's scoring graduate, Monahan and Sorrentine have been bent on making sure the Purple Knights are no one-hit wonder.

Monahan is the NE-10's top scorer at 24.9 points a game and is also hauling down a conference-best average of 11.4 rebounds. The Kinderhook, N.Y., native set the tone by piling up 30 points against the University of Vermont in a preseason exhibition loss.

"Brian has always been a good player for us," O'Shea said. "Last year I felt like he had an all-league-type year (16 ppg, 10 rpg), but this year he has taken it to another level.

"Brian is such a hard guy to double-team because he's such a great passer."

His favorite target is Sorrentine, who has canned 33 3-pointers this season and 293 for his career, nine shy of breaking the program record held by 2001 graduate Todd Roberts.

But the Pawtucket, R.I., native still has a ways to go to catch the 359 3s his older brother and offseason practice partner, T.J., drilled during a stellar career at the UVM.

"In the summer time we play a lot of one-on-one and try to shoot every day," said James Sorrentine, who is averaging 18.3 points a game this season. "A couple hundred shots a day. It's all about repetition."

"He's one of if not the best shooters I've seen here in 18 years," O'Shea said of Sorrentine. "When he gets on a roll, he can make 7, 8, 9 (3-pointers) a game. He's got a great release, and he gets a lot of (3-pointers) in transition."

Last season, after two years of taking their lumps during a rebuilding phase, the Purple Knights qualified for the NE-10 playoffs for the first time in four years, advancing to the second round before falling to St. Rose.

"Last year was a big step," Sorrentine said. "We got some experience and we got a win in the playoffs. This year we are trying to improve on that."

Contact John A. Fantino at 651-4851 or jfantino@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com