Delaware coach savors run to CAA title game

BALTIMORE - Walking off the court at Baltimore Arena, Delaware Blue Hens basketball coach Monte' Ross looked up in the stands and pumped his fist, three times, four times . . .. seven, eight, nine times.

Yes, he was pumped.

"We're 40 minutes away," Ross said when asked about those pumps. This is the best team he's ever been in charge of, now 24-9 after beating Northeastern, 87-74.

Ross knows as well as anyone what it means for a school to get to March Madness. He was there right next to Phil Martelli a decade ago when the St. Joseph's Hawks got within a jump shot of the Final Four.

That experience has to be helpful. The pressure on a top seed in a one-bid conference tournament is massive. It only increases when your school is the top seed and hasn't been to the NCAA tournament since 1999.

There are plenty of people in Philly rooting for the Blue Hens expressively because of their head coach. A Bodine High graduate, Ross was an assistant at Drexel before St. Joe's and has his roots coaching in the Sonny Hill League.

Whatever pressure his team felt Sunday against Northeastern in the Colonial Athletic Association semifinals, the Blue Hens either suppressed it or used it for fuel in the second half, scoring on 15 of 17 possessions at one point. The only misses were an offensive foul inside and a missed open three by Delaware's top shooter.

A 76-percent shooting half was plenty good enough for a victory, putting Delaware into a conference final (against William and Mary) for the first time since 2001, back when the Blue Hens were in the America East.

"These guys can score," Ross said at the postgame news conference, sitting between Blue Hens seniors Devon Saddler and Davon Usher, who average 39.7 points between them and were good for 37 on Sunday. "I'd be foolish to sit here and say I did this, this and this and that's why they scored. Davon's been scoring the ball since he came out of the womb. Saddler . . . the same thing. He was probably scoring at conception.''

Ross said his job is a lot of managing this season, as opposed to coaching. That's the same phrasing, managing, that Phil Martelli used recently to describe how he coached in 2004.

His trust can lead to nervous moments, the coach allowed.

"I cringe, our fans cringe, at some of the shots we take," Ross said. "But you have to live with them because there's an opportunity to do what we just did in the second half. . . . You can't suppress. When you have guys who can score, you can't get in the way. There will be times when they take a difficult shot."

Ross made it clear: His scorers have a high basketball IQ.

"It's never two times in a row," Ross said of any wild plays. "It's rarely two times in a game.''

And if they have stretches when they don't score, as Saddler did in the first half Sunday, "they don't waver," Ross said.

What are the differences from those 2004 Hawks?

"We had two guys go in the first round of the NBA draft," Ross said, referring to Jameer Nelson and Delonte West. As good as his guys are, he said, they're not doing that.

In charge at Delaware since 2006, Ross never moved from Delaware County. He still lives in Media, where he can be spotted running in the streets.

"My wife and I bought a house two years before I got the Delaware job," Ross said. "Our kids were entrenched in the schools that they were in. . . . We didn't want to upset the apple cart."

And being a Division I head coach is a public position, and everything isn't rosy all the time.

"They didn't sign up for this," Ross said of his children. "I take a lot of hits, and all that kind of stuff. I want them to be able to have a somewhat normal existence."

His drive isn't a long one down to Newark. Only a few minutes longer than it had been the other way up City Line Avenue to Hawk Hill.

"It allows me to solve half the problems of the world on the way down," Ross said, "and the other half on the way home."

And if the longest 40 minutes of his life go the right way on Monday night, Ross can let someone else solve them for a while. He'll be driving down a different road.

@jensenoffcampus