Mosley's return sparks Uniondale resurgence

The wood door to Uniondale coach Tom Diana's office has hinges. But with the heavy foot traffic coming in and out, a revolving door from a Manhattan skyscraper would be a more apt entrance.

You'd think an unassuming 5-8, er . . . 7, ballplayer like Shaquille Mosley would be able to slide in and out unnoticed. Think again.

Noshing on a slice of chicken pizza nearly the size of his stomach just hours before Wednesday's 17-point win over Farmingdale, Mosley appeared comfortable in his surroundings. After four different high-school stops, including a return to Uniondale, the junior point guard said he is. But he's cognizant of how others may view him.

Mosley's odyssey began in Oyster Bay, as a freshman at St. Dominic. Last year, he was a key cog in Uniondale's Class AA county title. This season, he started at perennial city power Lincoln (Brooklyn), but longed to rejoin his friends at Uniondale. He came back in December, but was forced to miss the Knights' first two games because he didn't have enough practices with the team.

It took some ironing out, but Mosley has the Knights back in a familiar position - tied for first place in Conference AA-I, with Freeport, and on the short list of county title contenders.

"I didn't want my teammates to think 'oh, he didn't think we were good enough to play with him,' " Mosley said about his return to Uniondale. "Basically, I just needed to get comfortable."

In his first game back, Mosley scored 20 points, including six three-pointers, then scored 33 the next game. Backcourt mate Roderick Epps said, "It was like he never left."

Yet the expectations for the Division I prospect may have been getting to his head, and it showed with all the shots he was taking.

"In the beginning of the season, I was missing [open] guys," he said. "I had to realize that when I'm going to the basket, everyone's collapsing in the paint, so I have to kick it out to them. Once they get hot, it's going to be hard for teams to defend both of us."

Uniondale's talent overwhelmed lesser opponents early on, but the team didn't truly make its transition until suffering back-to-back Conference AA-I losses to Freeport and Hempstead last month.

Said center Sean Brown: "We're everybody's Super Bowl. Everybody wants to beat Uniondale."

The Knights have won seven of the last nine county titles and three Long Island championships during that span. They had a sizable crowd for their walk-through before Friday's game.

"We heard it all," Mosley said of the reaction in the school to the losses. "People were blaming it on different players or the team. But we don't worry about that. They love us when we're winning."

They certainly do. The Knights (10-4, 7-2) have won four straight games by an average of nearly 20 points.

Want to know how they've done it? Allow coach Mosley, the focal point in Diana's cramped office despite being surrounded by four larger teammates, to explain.

"We all know what each other can do," said Mosley, who then went into an emotional monologue. "We feed off Sean Brown because Sean Brown brings a whole bunch of motivation and inspiration to the game. He gets us riled up by him playing defense, boxing out and getting every rebound. It helps us get out and run.

"We have two shooters, Barry [Robinson] and Rod, which, if they're open, they're going to knock it down. They're like automatic. After we get them involved, and they're hitting all their shots, then it opens up the lane for me. And that's basically how the game gets open for us."

Seems simple enough.

In the last three games alone, Mosley has 23 assists. Diana is certainly enjoying what he's been seeing lately.

"We're seeing bigger flashes," he said. "When you see highlights, those are snapshots. We're starting to put those together where you can make a film now. Some games, it might have been eight or six or five. The last few games, it's been 25 or 30."

Mosley (18 points per game) and Epps (15 points), who Diana calls "probably the best guard combo on Long Island," lead the Uniondale charge. But big men Kenny Woodard, Brown and Robinson have been doing the dirty work to keep the guards scot-free.

Brown said of the team's progression: "We take steps. We're not going to jump a step and say we're gonna play in the championship. You can't just start crawling as a baby and then all of a sudden start running."