Another thing that neither I or my teammates liked seeing on this board were some of the comments made towards our Coach. Now as I said earlier Queens, you are entitled to your opinion.... And I can see that maybe some things you said were taken out of context..

However, some of the things you did say certainly hit home with us and were not at all appreciated...

Firstly, you're saying "'I'm amazed Podias lasted that long as Head Coach with a record like that" & "Podias will go back to his usual ways, which is losing".. Those statements were unnecessary and unwarranted... To infer that Coach P should be out of a job that he cherishes is completely wrong o you... You  went on to post his record pre-Rich.. Coach's record that you see there is not at all indicative of the kind of coach he is nor the kind of man he is. Coach P means everything to us.. He puts in insane hours each and everyweek, as do all the coaches in CUNY.. He does a great job preparing us for not only basketball games, but for life... He and our other assistant coaches put together this specific teams, finding the right combination of talented players and character rich players.. Winning back to back championships has to put us in the conversation for best CUNY teams ever, and Coach P made that happen.. Yeah some may say Brooklyn got lucky with DC & Rich transferring, but as everyone knows, the most talented teams do not always win championships.. Coach P put us in a position to make sure we did... He also has been able to keep us together, whereas other teams in the conference have crazy roster turnover year in and year out.. We have 10 returning players next year... 3 are heading into their 4th year on the team, 6 heading into their 3rd year.. and 1 heading into his 2nd.. Our coaches have provided the family atmosphere that I believe sets us apart from all the other teams spoken about on this board...

Without being around our program, you can't possibly know what goes on.. You are just stating your opinion, which you are entitled to. I only ask that when you do so, keep it positive. We all know what we are losing in our 4 seniors... We know how tough it will be to win a 3rd straight championship.. But I assure you that we will be ready to defend our titles.. We will be prepared to be to do whatever it takes to win every game on our schedule.. And that preparation, that confidence.. Starts with our coaches... Particularly Coach Podias..

On another note, I didn't get to touch on this with my first post.. Saying something along the lines that Rich got kicked off the team at Farmingdale was foolish.. Were you there at Farmingdale during that time? Do you know exactly what happened? You don't. There was alot that went into it, and what you stated is certainly not what actually occurred. You can't always rely on what you hear.. Thats not fair to the readers on the board, its not fair to the people you are talking about either.

As you and topoftheworld both said, it is not at all wrong of you guys to come on here and share your opinions.. In fact, as I said earlier, I rather enjoy reading this board and keeping up with the times as they say... All that we could ask is that you not demean the roles that we all play... We're all college athletes here, we're simply trying to have some fun while obtaining our degrees and going out into the real world.. Sometimes I think people forget that.. 98% of us are never going to play a "meaningful"game after our college eligibilty is up.. We're just in it for the love of the game..

I do hope that I was able to get my points across here succinctly and without offending anyone...

Some of my teammates and I just felt a little perturbed by some of the things said on this board of late.. While we do understand that some things may have been taken out of context..

The simple fact of the matter is this... If you are not fortunate enough to be around our program, you can not possibly know what goes on there for certain... Know this.. We are a tightknit group.. And if you asked anyone around our program, we would not have won either championship without each specific person who was on the team.. We all play vital roles in our program, we all bring specific, necessary things to the table.. You'll just never be able to imagine how important everyone is to our success.. All you guys see, all most sports fans see.. Is the player who makes the shot, never the person who made the pass that led to the pass... or the person who took the charge... or the key substitution the coach made at a specific point in the game... These things are always unseen and therefore cannot be fully appreciated...

Anyone who has been around our program these last few years can attest to this.. It has been special.. Yes, we've had a special player in Rich...But as I stated above, what most people think about Rich is that he's this talented player, a great scorer.. Nobody knows the sacrifices he's made for us as a team, nobody knows how great a leader he's been.. And that goes for every single person on our team 1 through 14..  We've all made sacrifices and contributions to our team... We all have given our blood,sweat and tears to this program...

In these past few years, we've only lost 1 player to grades... We've made a commitment to each other as a team, that we won't let each other down... We will maintain our grades so that we can all be there at the end. In fact, 3 of us are Dean's List Students... And 1 is graduating early.....

All of those other things that are spoken about on here.. "this program does this to get kids eligible" or "this program does that".. That is of absolutely no concern to us.. At the end of the day, we at Brooklyn are a family..  A family that was started by Coach P... We all stand by him through anything and everything, and we know that as long as he is at the helm, that we will be ready to play our style of basketball...

We will be ready to 3peat next year...
I'll have to think of a more creative name to post with for next year.. But for now, Back2Back will have to do...

In the meantime, I hope to never post again, and to find wholesome, goodnatured posts on the board from this point forward... Just let us players play, let the coaches coach... Be fans, and enjoy the game.

I've always been an avid follower of this blog and enjoyed reading the posts, particularly the entertaining ones when people went back and forth.
However, after seeing the posts over the past few days, I decided to step up and write myself...

I am one of the returning players for next year's Brooklyn team.. although according to Queens we should all just give up because Rich is leaving us...

I am not writing this to be hateful or attack anyone, just my teammates and I got a little tired of Queens basically saying that we would have been nothing if not for Rich..

Don't get me wrong, Rich is an immensely talented player, the most talented player in the region, and one of the best in the nation. He did, as Queens said, make each and everyone of us better..

However, I assure you, and Rich will attest to this in a heartbeat that with our practices being as intense and competitive as they are, we all made him a better player as well...

Queens, being that you have never been at one of our practices, I don't think you understand how intense they are... our scrimmages in practice this year were tougher than some of our games.. and I assure you that we are the most talented team in the conference, kids on our bench would start for most, if not all of the teams in the conference...

Now I believe that you suggested that we would not have won back to back championships if not for Rich.. Obviously, that may be true, given the fact that he had such great games both years.. But let me ask you this, what team wins a championship without their best player? It doesn't happen...

Would York have won back to back championships without Jeff Boone, who by happy coincidence was a JUCO transfer himself? I don't think so...

How about this year....
Is York in the championship game without Marcel?
Does Baruch make it to the semi's without Hilaire?
Hunter without Rubino?

Each team needs their # 1 guy, thats a given... In fact, take the best player off each team in the conference, I think we win the championship rather easily...

You also said previously, that other than Rich & Amil, you're not sold on the rest of our team... Now I'm not quite sure how many times you saw us play this year...The leadership of DC & Tommy has been instrumental for our team over the past 2 seasons...Maybe you weren't at the semi-final game last month when DC dominated Baruch over the last 5 minutes of that game.. I doubt you were at the Widener game when Tommy hit the buzzer beater to win the game... Perhaps you weren't there when last year at the championship, went DC went on a 9-0 run by himself to extend our lead going into the half when Rich was in foul trouble... Probably failed to notice that AJ had 11 points and 4 assists off the bench that game..  Hardly anyone ever outside of Bedford Ave ever notices or appreciates the blue collar effort put forth by Darnell each and everytime he steps onto the floor for us. And I suppose you could have missed the efforts put forth by Tyshawn and Enes off the bench in the championship game this year.. When they checked in to the game, the whole game changed..Simple as that..

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I have to assume you're just not watching closely enough.. If you were, you would see all of this..  We were 2nd in the nation in steals... took all 14 of us, everyday in practice working on our press to do that... We led the conference in Assist-Turnover ratio.. took all of us believing in each other to do that...

What really separates us from the other teams is that we are a TEAM in every sense of the word.... When one person isn't having a good day, there are 2 more people there waiting to pick up the slack.. We have great leadership on our team..  The atmosphere and attitude put forth by our coaches has also been a huge part of our success... We're 66-20 over the past 3 years, 38-8 in Cuny play.. An example of what separates us from other teams could be seen in the championship game a few weeks ago.. When things started going wrong for York, they all started arguing with each other... Not us.. Countless times over these past few seasons we've been down big to teams.. Just see the semi-final and final game from this year, where we were down double digits in both games.. However, we never once lost our heads... The bond that we have as teammates, the love that we have for each other has resonated through our play, and that has been the biggest part of our winning back to back championships...