EMMITSBURG - The good-natured jawing between senior Julian Norfleet and freshman Khalid Nwandu before Wednesday's Blue-White Scrimmage at Mount St. Mary's ended with this from Norfleet: "You're gonna lose."
For 28 of the scrimmage's 30 minutes it looked as if he might be wrong, but Norfleet scored six points and had a critical steal in the final two minutes to lead his Blue team to a come-from-behind 63-54 win in what served as a reintroduction of the Mountaineers to their fan base.
"That last timeout I was like, 'We're here to win,'" said Norfleet, who had previously been smiling as he used no-look passes and acrobatic moves to the hoop with only moderate success. "So we had to tone it down a little bit, lock in and get this win."
Second-year Mount coach Jamion Christian expected as much.
"Julian's a winner," Christian said. "Every time he plays the point guard spot we seem not to lose many games. Moving him to the point [last season] really made me a much better coach, and so I wasn't surprised he was able to pull his team out of it."
Christian was alluding to the Mount's late-season run to the Northeast Conference championship game that included nine consecutive wins before the nationally televised, season-ending loss at LIU Brooklyn.
Christian admitted on Wednesday that he has yet to watch the tape of that entire game. Norfleet said it took him several weeks to get over the defeat.
But both said they believe the Mountaineers can carry over some of the momentum the team built over the final five or six weeks from last season.
If so, they'll be doing it with different personnel. While five players who started at least 10 games - including all three players who averaged double figures in scoring - are back, five others transferred out, four of them starters at some point during their MSM tenure.
That group included Shivaughn Wiggins, last year's NEC Rookie of the Year, who left for Coastal Carolina.
"It's a loss for our program," Norfleet said, before turning the talk to the new players he brought in.
Like Nwandu, a 6-foot-3 point guard who figures to serve a one-year apprenticeship under Norfleet before taking over the team. And like fellow freshman guards Byron Ashe and Charles Glover.
They all showed flashes during a Wednesday scrimmage largely dominated by the upperclassmen.
Norfleet finished with a game-high 19 points, backed by 10 points and eight rebounds from sophomore 7-footer Taylor Danaher and nine points and 10 boards from sophomore Gregory Graves, who has added 15 pounds of muscle since the end of last season. Rashad Whack, who had offseason shoulder surgery, scored nine points although he conceded he is still a little "off."
Senior swingman Sam Prescott, whose 44 points against Bryant last February broke the record for a Mount player since the school's move to Division I in 1988, had 17 points and seven boards to lead the White team. (Chris Martin, a transfer from Marshall, made four of five 3-pointers to score 14 points in 13 minutes for White, but he won't be repeating that in a regular-season game because he has to sit out until next year under NCAA transfer rules.)
The scrimmage featured 33 turnovers, but also 21 assists.
"You look at the box score, you're going to see some turnovers. That doesn't bother me at this point. It means our defense is a little bit ahead of our offense. That's about where you should be at," Christian said. "I just love how unselfish the guys played, their enthusiasm and their excitement and that's what I'm looking for on a day like today."
The Mountaineers open their season on Nov. 8 at West Virginia, one of a number of a big-time non-conference opponents on the schedule that also includes Villanova, Michigan State and Penn State. Their first home game is set for Nov. 23 against American.
