My name is Greg Noack and I’m a junior forward for the Monmouth University Men’s Basketball Team. I’m a business management major with an IT minor, and I will be writing this blog weekly throughout this season for the Shore Sports Network.

This offseason was one of the best summers that we have had in the last few years. We attacked this offseason with a lot of motivation after a tough loss to Iona last year in the MAAC Tournament. We let that fuel us for this upcoming year and took all that energy and motivation on our foreign tour to China. Hopefully you were all able to follow our trip to see what we did on the other side of the world, winning 3 of our 4 games while overseas. Winning in China also helped our confidence, but definitely didn’t diminish the motivation and fire we have to surprise a lot of people and to of course have another shot at that elusive MAAC Championship.

As we move closer to the start of the season, there is a noticeable buzz around campus and the Monmouth community. Our exhibition game against Georgian Court was excellent and we felt as if it was a step in the right direction, pertaining to our own confidence and the success that we wish to have this year.

Today will be our last practice before we board a flight to Los Angeles and battle the UCLA Bruins in the historic Pauley Pavilion on Friday night. The energy inside the locker room is on another level, as we get ready to visit the West Coast in what will be a trip all of us will remember for the rest of our lives.

After we play UCLA, we will drive along the coast and visit the Trojans of USC in the second game of our California trip. Everyone on the team, and everyone that has ever played basketball at a competitive level, has wished to go face-to-face with high major teams such as UCLA and USC. The energy will be there, simply because we have been waiting for this day since we were young kids with a goal of playing college basketball.

Story by Greg Noack

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