Now, enjoy the links! If you come across any interesting links, then please share them with us in the comments section below.

Get your weekend started right by checking out these links, starting a new, free Feedly account, and/or adding the blogs above (and JerseySmarts.com, too) to your existing Feedly or other RSS aggregator account. Enjoy!

This weekend’s links are below for your reading pleasure. If you come across any interesting links, then please share them with us in the comments section below. Enjoy!

Get your weekend started right by checking out these links, starting a new Feedly account, and/or adding the blogs above (and JerseySmarts.com, too) to your existing Feedly or other RSS aggregator account. Enjoy!

Second, Sophomore Andrew Nicholas had a career night with 28 points. It was really something great to watch. In fact, he was named the Northeast Conference’s Co-Player of the Week for his effort.

This is a Monmouth team that has a lot of fan support and a lot of fan investment in the team. One of the primary reasons for the renewed support isn’t just the dedicated players on the court, but the great coaching changes that were made before the beginning of last year’s season. The biggest of those changes was bringing in Head Coach King Rice to help rebuild the program from the bottom up. Rice is an enthusiastic coach and seems to have a very positive, strong connection with his team’s leaders. Here are some of his post-game comments followed by some comments by Nicholas on his career game:

I don’t have much more commentary on the game because you can find much more information at the links below. However, I have a few pictures from the game that I figured I’d post here in case anyone was interested in taking a look. The Asbury Park Press reports that there were some 2,307 fans in attendance last Friday night and it certainly looked like it (and sounded like it). Here’s hoping that the excitement and attendance continues to grow at the MAC.

Normally, I wouldn’t make the full-size images available for viewing (I usually cut these things down in size so that they are easier on my server). However, since I only have six pictures to post, I left the high resolution images available for you to look at if you want. Enjoy!

Read more about the Hawks’ home opening win on Tony Graham’s blog and the Monmouth Athletics website.

Wait until the next time the Powerball lottery gets to one of those outrageous dollar amounts and I guaranty that you’ll hear those conversations going on all around you.

For those of us who graduated college or graduate school with inordinate amounts of student loan debt and have successfully completed or been engaged in a repayment plan, we have a slightly different version of daydreaming. The truth is that this small cohort of student loan borrowers doesn’t sit around and wonder what it would be like to have millions of dollars to play with; instead we sit around and daydream about what it would be like to have all of those student loan payments that we sent off to play with instead.

This isn’t one of those entries where I’m going to bore you with intricate financial statistics or complex equations talking about the amount of money that I lose everyday to interest expenses on my student loans ($3.32). Instead of all of that stuff, I’m going to eyeball a round number to indicate how much I think I’ve spent on student loan principal payments, interest payments, origination fees, transfer fees, and consolidation fees. I’m going to suggest that this estimated round number is between $135,000 and $145,000.

What this range doesn’t calculate is what I might have gained if I would have had the opportunity to invest these funds, but that’s another post for another day.

Those of us who willingly took on exorbitant amounts of student loan debt with the full knowledge that we would be saddled with a repayment obligation that we always intended to meet (lots of qualifiers in the beginning of this sentence…) get a bittersweet feeling when we sit around and think of what we could have done with years and years of student loan payments (which are usually over-payments each month). This past weekend, several of my college buddies stayed over at my place after a group of us went out to the bar. The next day when a few of us were sitting around and talking about different things, the topic of student loan payments came up and it got me back to this familiar form of daydreaming: What would I have done with all of those payments if I didn’t have these student loans?

Immediately, three things come to mind.

First, I would have a substantial savings structure including more equity investments (stocks), fixed investments (government-backed bonds and certificates of deposits), and liquid savings (regular savings account). Granted, I have different levels of these savings structures in place right now, but I’d definitely have more and more varied types of these savings accounts if I had all of that student loan money back.

Second, I would have a more secure housing situation. Now this one is a little bit trickier than just something as simple as, “I would have purchased a house by now.” The area of New Jersey where I live (the northern Jersey Shore area) does not produce reasonable real estate prices right now. Sure, I could have used some of those funds to purchase a home, but the amount, type, and location of the home that I would be able to purchase would not be as much, the type of, or in the area where I’d want to live – so I wouldn’t do it. Plus, the time period when I would have been buying a home would have put me right in the group where the value of the home would be declining quicker than the amount of the outstanding loan principal. So… I wouldn’t have purchased a home.

Instead, I would have set aside a substantial amount of money (around $20,000 to $30,000) to be my “housing reserve fund.” I would still budget my monthly rent from my monthly cash flow, but I would have these funds available in the event that I had to vacate my current place, that I wanted to move, or that I just needed funds for housing-related costs. That housing reserve fund would have provided me with the type of long-term stability that most renters don’t have the benefit of enjoying.

Third and finally, I would have either purchased or been in the final stages of building a vacation home. I know, I know – this one seems crazy. I get it. There are folks at my office who call me Mr. Austerity because of my strong discipline to strict rules and regulations when it comes to the financial aspects of our company. In other words, I hate spending the company’s money even if the company wants their money spent! And I’m a stickler for following a strict set of rules in the office because I think companies need structure and if they have that structure already in place, then they should follow it.

So… the idea of me taking some of this money and purchase a vacation home may seem somewhat insane. I assure you, though, it’s not crazy at all. In fact, there are a lot of reasons why I’d either be savings towards buying a vacation home or I would have already purchased one. Among those reasons are the fact that I would buy a home somewhere in or near the Poconos – where the real estate and property taxes are much, much cheaper than in New Jersey. Plus, there are a lot of beautiful areas in that part of Pennsylvania where you can have a wonderful home with gorgeous, wildlife views. Don’t get me wrong – I love living on the Jersey Shore, but I also really enjoy the peaceful feeling of being surrounded by nature.

I’d also be looking to get that vacation home to host group gatherings. In other words, it would be a nice place where my family could gather for events and holidays, where I could host barbeques and parties for my family and friends, and where I could host other events (planning sessions for my team at my company, annual strategy sessions for some of the nonprofit fundraising work that I do, etc). With respect to regular usage, I’m lucky that my company allows me to work from home on Fridays, so I would probably spend most weekends (weather permitting) up in the vacation home, especially during the summer months when the traffic down the shore is incredibly annoying.

The distance between my office and the general area of the Poconos is about an hour, which is a little bit longer than my daily commute so the distance isn’t a big deal at all. I could easily leave my office on a Thursday afternoon at 4:00pm, head to the vacation home for the weekend, and be there by 5:00pm. Then, I could just as easily leave the Poconos and get back to the office on Monday morning. In the event that I opted to do something like this, then I would probably move out of my current area of the state and, instead, move somewhere a little bit closer to my office. Not too close, though – I’d still like to be within close proximity of the northern Jersey Shore area due to attending Monmouth University basketball games, teaching at the local college, and attending other events in the Long Branch/Asbury Park area. My new apartment wouldn’t have to be too big or costly, either. A standard efficiency arrangement would be fine given that I’d have most of my nice stuff (like high-end electronics) up in the Poconos.

In short, I think I could definitely make that type of living scenario work out. And I’ve given it a lot of thought so I’m sure I’ve thought through most of the difficulties. Oh, and I wouldn’t worry abo-

Hey! Wake-up!

Those are just the daydreams from someone in my situation. You know, someone who has pushed more than $135,000 into student loans over a 6 year period; someone whose 12-month budget shows a whole lot of additional money getting pushed into student loan payments to finish these things off. And here’s the kicker of the whole situation: I might be 12 months away from being free of these students loans, but that doesn’t mean the financial daydreams you read above would be kicked into high gear. Not at all.

Instead, once my student loans are paid off I can then just begin to think about budgeting to start saving to meet just one of those daydreams.

And that is a splash of ice cold reality in the face of some fun daydreaming, don’t you think?

I hope that you enjoy flipping through some of these pictures – I know that I enjoyed attending the Hawks’ games last season and I’m hoping for a better season next year. It’s a shame that a talented guy like Austin Tillotson decided to leave the team and the university, but if the kid didn’t feel comfortable in the program and wanted to go to a good academic school, then he has to make the right decision for him. And for Tillotson, that decision was to go to Colgate. If those are his reasons for leaving, I don’t think you can really blame him for making the move. Colgate is a nationally-ranked academic school while Monmouth has a modest ranking at a regional level. Colgate has about half of the enrollment that Monmouth has, so it seems to fit what the kid was looking for in his college experience.

Good for him – I wish him luck. And now, enjoy the pictures!

According to Rice the Hawks (2-10) had departed for the holidays prior to tip off.

“Our players already left, they weren’t here tonight,” Rice said. “They were already gone on break.”

“We didn’t come to play today,” Monmouth junior forward Ed Waite said.

Special thanks to The Hawks Nest blog on the Asbury Park Press website for the quotes. Coach Rice and Waite hit the nail on the head – those kids just weren’t into the game the other night. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading through the article that is linked to The Hawks Nest because in the comments section there is some discussion about how the pre-conference schedule might have impacted the players.

In short, these guys must be worn out.

Not only have they already played some 12 games, but they played against a high level of competition for the Monmouth program. In their pre-conference schedule alone, Monmouth played (and was beaten by) the following teams: Villanova, Virginia Tech, George Mason, Albany, Brown, Vanderbilt, Navy, and Rutgers. That’s some pretty stiff competition for a program that is coming out of a stifling stagnation from the last few years.

Most former athletes and sports types will tell you that you only get better by playing against better competition, but there’s only a little bit of truth in that statement. A team gets “better” by playing against better competition when one of two things happens. First, it raises the consistency and performance of the players to a higher level. Second, it elevates the program in the national perspective and allows them to bring in higher level recruits. There’s no way for us to know whether the latter has happened yet, but given the poor performance against Rider one might be able to argue that the former isn’t happening (yet).

Rider came into the MAC and beat Monmouth, 74 - 62

In fact, one might say that there is something about being consistently beaten by higher level competition that actually has a detracting effect on lower level teams. I guess we’ll have to see how the Hawks perform in the Northeast Conference before making that final determination.

And yet still, I think there is a lot of potential in this young team, their new coach, and their new system. There is at least hope in this system, which is something that was totally lacking over the last few years. Part of the problem that Coach Rice has to be running into is the fact that he hasn’t yet felt the impact of any of his recruiting efforts. At times the other night I got the impression that Rice was frustrated with his players checking out for Christmas before the game was over. Towards the end of the game it appeared like he was rotating his players in an effort to get at least one of them to up their game – and it wasn’t happening to any remarkable level at all.

Finally, aside from the poor end result I thought that Austin Tillotson played very well (he’s an aggressive player – as a fan I’m glad he’s on the team). Also, I thought that Jesse Steele had an okay game. Sure, it wasn’t as good as his performance against Fordham University last week, but the entire team played well against Fordham so it was easier for Steele to elevate his own play.

Here’s looking forward to a “W” on January 5th when the Hawks take on Mount St. Mary’s at their next home game. And here’s looking forward to much better scheduling next year – only two home games before the new year? Really?!

The Monmouth Hawks won their home opener over the weekend

The first thing that I noticed was that the people who actually attended the game were excited and into the action. According to various reports there were slightly over 1,800 people in attendance (which means the arena was slightly less than half full) and I’m sure that the young men who were playing for Monmouth enjoyed actually hearing the fans cheer for them when they scored. Remember, by some brilliant stroke of scheduling genius (sarcasm) the Hawks played NINE away games to start their season. Imagine playing 9 away games where there are just a handful of your fans in the stands if any at all. Not smart… And on that topic, Monmouth will only play 2 home games before January 1st this season. Last season, they played 6 home games plus an exhibition game before the new year. The year before they played 5 home games before the new year. Something about scheduling just 2 home games before the new year doesn’t sit right with me as a season ticket holder; not to mention that there are only 12 scheduled home games last year as compared with 15 last year (16 with the exhibition) and 14 the year before. But aside from the head-scratching scheduling, as a season ticket holder and team supporter I’m more concerned with the kids on the team. Up until Saturday night, these kids player this season with nearly no fan support. I’m sure that they enjoyed the standing ovations, chants, and cheers that the fans gave them throughout the game on Saturday night.

And those guys deserved every little bit of the support, too.

The team was led by Jesse Steele’s outstanding performance (which earned him NEC Player of the Week honors) where he scored “18 points while contributing six assists, five boards and a steal.” That quote was from the linked article, which I suggest you read when you get a chance.

Two more comments about Saturday night’s game and then we’ll call it a day for this entry. First, I was very encouraged by the new Head Coach King Rice and his style of motivating his players. Whereas the previous head coach opted to hoot, holler, and yell at nearly every player during what seemed like every second of the game, Coach Rice was cooler, calmer, and more collected than his predecessor. And this may sound like an odd comment to make after only watching one game under the new coach, but it appeared like the players were more confident in their game plan. In other words, it seemed like the dramatic decrease in the constant yelling and screaming coming from the bench made the players more confident in doing what they do best – play basketball.

After the last two seasons of Hawks basketball it was nice to see confident Hawks players for a change.

Second and finally, I have two comments about The Varsity Club. I missed Coach Rice’s post-game speech in The Varsity Club because the two dopes that I went to the game with didn’t want to hang around too late after the game was over. We had a small housewarming party to get to after the game and these two guys acted as though their entire lives depended on running out the MAC and getting to that party. Granted, we did wait around for a little while upstairs to hear Coach Rice talk, but the coach must have been held up doing something downstairs. So, about 30 minutes after the game ended we left The Varsity Club because the dopes that I went to the game with ramped their bitching complaining up to an absurd level. That said, what I heard about Coach Rice’s speech was all positive. The word is that he was very sincere and very thankful for the fans who came out and supported the team.

The second comment about The Varsity Club was that the pregame food preparation was not that good – at all. For starters, for the second time in the last few weeks The Varsity Club was serving chicken on the bone as the main entree and a very weak side dish (pierogies). I’m a firm believer that if you’re serving a large group of diverse people, then you can’t have one (or two) main entrees that feature a meat stuck to a piece of bone. You can have baked chicken on the bone, but then you have to also serve a pasta in red sauce or a tray of sandwiches or something. You can’t just have meat on the bone (cue jokes from my roommates on that comment). But what was more disturbing was that they ran out of food about 45 minutes into the pregame meal! Sure, they brought some more food out about 15 minutes before the game started (including meat that wasn’t stuck to a bone), but I was a little surprised that they didn’t anticipate the demand for space in The Varsity Club for the first home game. All anyone had to do was talk to any of the season ticket holders and they would have realized that there was a huge demand for one of these damn home games already. Of course there were going to be a lot of people in The Varsity Club! I submitted my comments to the gentleman who runs that show up there and he was very cool about it and admitted that they just underestimated the demand for the pregame meal before the game.

Understood. It happens.

Here’s looking forward to the next home game on Thursday, December 22nd!

2011 – 2012 Monmouth University Men’s Basketball Schedule
Friday, November 11th at Villanova, 7:00 PM

Dick’s Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off Tournament at Virginia Tech
Monday, November 14th at Virginia Tech, TBA
Tuesday, November 15th vs. George Mason or FIU, TBA
Monday, November 21st – Wednesday, November 23rd vs. TBD, TBA

Regular Season
Friday, November 25th at Vanderbilt, 9:00 PM
Thursday, December 1st at St. Francis, PA, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, December 3rd at Robert Morris, 7:00 PM *
Tuesday, December 6th at Navy, 7:00 PM
Saturday, December 10th vs. FORDHAM, 7:00 PM
Monday, December 12th at Rutgers, 7:30 PM
Thursday, December 22nd vs. RIDER, 7:00 PM
Wednesday, December 28th at Lafayette, 7:00 PM
Sunday, January 1st at UNC-Chapel Hill, TBA
Thursday, January 5th vs. MOUNT ST. MARY’S, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, January 7th vs. WAGNER, 7:00 PM *
Tuesday, January 10th vs. HARVARD, 7:00 PM
Thursday, January 12th at St. Francis, NY, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, January 14th at LIU, 7:00 PM *
Thursday, January 19th vs. ST. FRANCIS, PA, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, January 21st vs. ROBERT MORRIS, 7:00 PM *
Thursday, January 26th at CCSU, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, January 28th at Bryant, 7:00 PM *
Thursday, February 2nd vs. SACRED HEART, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, February 4th vs. QUINNIPIAC, 7:00 PM *
Wednesday, February 8th at FDU, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, February 11th vs. FDU, 7:00 PM *
Thursday, February 16th at Mount St. Mary’s, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, February 18th at Wagner, 7:00 PM *
Thursday, February 23rd vs. ST. FRANCIS, NY, 7:00 PM *
Saturday, February 25th vs. LIU, 7:00 PM *

NEC Tournament (if Qualified)
Thursday, March 1st; Sunday, March 4th; and Wednesday, March 7th

* = Northeast Conference Game
Opposing Team’s Name in CAPITAL LETTERS = Home Game

There are a few things that stick out in this schedule to me. First, there are only 12 home games according to this schedule while there were 15 last year. I don’t know whether or not this schedule is truly finalized (I assume that it is not), but I would hope that the powers that be find a way to put a few more home games on the schedule.

Second, the first home game isn’t until nearly the middle of December?! Come on! That ain’t right – not just for the fans, but for the players. These kids should be given an opportunity to play in front of their fellow students and home town crowd during a time that isn’t right smack dab in the middle of preparation for final exams. If there isn’t another home game added to this schedule before the December 10th game, then this is just poor scheduling on someone’s part.

Third, talk about playing against some stiff competition! This is great! I’m so glad that the Hawks are no longer going to go to that silly Basketball Travelers Classic in Idaho. Who gives a damn about that tournament? Getting into the Preseason NIT? Now that’s a step up for the program – nice work! And a game against UNC-Chapel Hill right in the middle of the season? I love it! Very, very good work putting this type of real, tough, competitive schedule together.

Here’s looking forward to the coming season! Read more about this season’s schedule at GoMUHawks.com.

MU Head Coach King Rice has his coaching staff set for the 2011 - 2012 basketball season

In fact, towards the end of the last season I actually stopped posting pictures up on the blog because the entire atmosphere around the program was dull, lethargic, and all-around crappy. Frankly, going to the games became a bit of a bummer because who wants to see their team fight to win a game and then wind up losing in the fourth quarter? I mean those players were fighting their asses off and something just wasn’t clicking. I can’t imagine how it must have felt for the guys in the uniforms, but for the fans in the stands (at least those of us who continued to go to the games until the dire end) it was pretty miserable. Blech.

But if any team in the Northeast Conference has managed to turn the “excitement tide” during this off-season, it has got to be the Hawks. Not only did the Hawks welcome a brand new head coach a few months ago, but there is an entirely brand new coaching staff. Plus, Monmouth sophomore Marcus Ware was named to the All-NEC Rookie Team during this off-season – very impressive!

However, I really think the change that has most fans excited is the change in the head coach position. At the end of March, Monmouth hired King David Rice to replace Dave Calloway (who is now working with a consulting firm). There is a lot of hope pinned to Coach Rice and I’m sure he understands the job that lies ahead of him. As was expected, one of his first steps in making this program his own was hiring an entirely brand new coaching staff. I think it was a great move and one that has the potential to pay dividends, but I understand that some long-time fans were annoyed at seeing the previous Assistant Coach let go (his name escapes me – I’m talking about Coach K) because of his long tenure at the university. I mean, I get that he had a long time to work within the Monmouth University system, but sometimes you have to move on, I guess.

The guys who were on the old coaching staff are talented in their own ways and I’m sure that they’ll land on their feet wherever it is that they decide to go.

Back to the point – Coach Rice has a big job ahead of him. Not only does he have to rebuild a broken program (let’s face it folks, the program is broken), but he has to do that while filling up that still-brand new arena, igniting a fire under the asses of the student population and the fan base, and developing relationships with existing supporters of the program (more on this momentarily). Most importantly, though, Coach Rice has to ensure that the young men on his team are getting the education that they are in college to receive. I blogged on here many times during the last season that it was totally unacceptable that freshmen – FRESHMEN – were suspended at the beginning of the season because of poor academic performance. Absolutely, without a doubt unacceptable. Talk about a student athlete support system not keeping their eye on the ball. Good grief!

Sorry, I get mad about that every time I think about it… because it’s ridiculous.

But back to the point about developing existing supporters of the program – I’ve been a supporter of the program for the past several years (three, I think). And I tried to attend all of the post-game mingle sessions after each of the home games. Sure, I’d hear the previous head coach talk about the game and how the team performed, but other than that – I didn’t see much development going on. When I write “development” I’m talking about fundraising. I don’t think anyone expects the head coach or the coaching staff to do fundraising, but I think everyone expects them to do the friendraising part of the equation. I didn’t see the previous coaching staff doing much friendraising after the games ended and the team’s supporters were in the Varsity Club. Hopefully, Coach Rice and his staff will completely engage the folks upstairs because the more support that can be generated for the team, the better off the program will be in the long run.

Anyway, that’s about all that I’ve been thinking about for the team during the off-season. I’m waiting for Monmouth to announce that season tickets are on-sale so I can renew both of my tickets. I’m a little bit of a salesman for the university for those tickets, by the way. During the first season in the new arena, I bought two season tickets. Then because of being invited to sit in my extra seat for a few games, my buddy down the street bought two tickets during the second season in the new arena to go along with my two seats (that’s four season tickets in total). And for this coming year, both of my roommates are going to buy season tickets so that’s a total of six season tickets that I’m somewhat responsible for helping the university sell. I mean as a fan I’m doing my part, I think!

Here’s hoping that Coach Rice and his new staff do their part. I think it’s going to be a great season!

When in doubt, tape it out!

For some reason, I found that very entertaining! Anyway, the more important story is that the Monmouth Hawks won their third game in a row and now are faced with a situation where they need to win two of their remaining three games in order to qualify for the NEC tournament. A few weeks ago I’d say that I’m not sure if the team would be able to make it happen. However, with three wins a row the Hawks might actually be building a slight bit of momentum going into tomorrow’s final home game of the season against Robert Morris University. If you’re in the area, make sure you head over to The MAC to support the Hawks!