SUFFOLK COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

By Tom Rock
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER
February 15, 2004

If anyone on the Suffolk CC-Selden men's basketball team should be called for traveling, it's Marcelle Bryant. The 6-6 freshman forward from Deer Park uses several modes of transportation to get to the Selden campus each day, completing the journey in about two hours. He walks, he takes a train, he catches a bus. Yesterday, he played an important role in Suffolk's lopsided Region XV win over FIT.

With forward Marcele Street on the bench with a stress fracture above his ankle, Bryant stepped in to the starting lineup and chipped in 10 points and five rebounds toward the Clippers' 94-62 win at Brookhaven Gymnasium. The victory extended Suffolk's winning streak to 44, the longest in the nation.

Street said he should be healthy enough to play in the Region XV Tournament at the end of the month. That could mean Bryant will be back riding the bench along with the bus.

"I can usually get a ride home, but not coming here," said Bryant, who is called "the Conductor" by teammates because he spends so much time on the train. Yesterday, he hitched a ride with fellow freshman Justin Hubbard.

He said he leaves his home around 8 each morning to walk to the Deer Park train station. There he takes an 8:43 train to Ronkonkoma, then a bus to the campus. He usually arrives around 10 a.m. "The weekends are actually better for me," he said, "because the trains come every hour."

Had he needed to rely on public transportation to get home yesterday, he could have left early, as Suffolk dominated from the start. Bryant hit a layup and a foul shot for a 3-0 lead 51 seconds into the game and it was never close again. Suffolk scored the first 13 points and had a 14-0 run late in the half. Its lead reached 39 points early in the second half.

Unfortunately for FIT, the game could be a preview of the first round of the regional tournament. FIT (12-13, 10-7) likely will be the eighth seed.

The latest win was a change of pace for Suffolk (26-0, 16-0), which needed overtime in its previous two victories. Coach Rich Wrase, sensing the team's fatigue, gave the players the day off Friday. No shootaround, no videotape. Just a day away from basketball.

"I told them to get out of here," he said. "They were just wiped."

Point guard Aaron Cummings had played every minute of the previous four games, and his exhaustion showed a bit yesterday. He had 10 assists but also eight turnovers. He was able to rest for most of this game. Maurice Manning, who scored a game-high 23 points, said the day off helped, as does the cancellation of next week's game against Columbia Greene.

"We wanted to get this game over with real quickly and rest our bodies," Manning said. "We've been playing three times a week for a while now."

That will begin to slow. Suffolk has two games remaining in the regular season - including its last home contest against Dutchess CC on Tuesday - and the possibility of three regional gaames and three more in the national tournament.

"We're a championship team and we can compete with just about any other team," Bryant said.

There was a lack of competition yesterday, but it was not the fault of Suffolk.

INSIDE VICTORY NO. 44

2003-04 RECORD: 26-0

PLUS: Suffolk was able to make the game fun early when Aaron Cummings scored on a behind-the-back give-and-go from Vernon Alonzo to make the score 11-0. Later in the first half, Maurice Manning launched a 70-foot pass underhanded to Cummings for an easy, fast-break layup.

MINUS: A crowd of only about 150 showed up for the game. Granted, it was played on a Saturday with few classes in session. Still, there can't be so little interest in a team this good, can there be?

SCC-SELDEN 94
FIT 62
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. 

 
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