March 08, 2013 12:00 AM

EAST STROUDSBURG — Twenty-two victories. A school-record-tying winning streak. A fourth-straight Final Four in the conference playoffs.

East Stroudsburg University's men's basketball team has enjoyed a season to remember so far.

For the better part of two months, the Warriors (22-5) were a can't miss, packing Koehler Fieldhouse on a nightly basis. They knocked off the good teams, the bad teams, and anyone in their way for that matter.

"The streak took a life of its own," coach Jeff Wilson said. "We weren't playing as good a basketball as it looked."

Huh?

Newspapers wrote headlines about them. Television stations gave all kinds of coverage.

On Feb. 10, ESU beat Kutztown 64-60 and on Feb. 13 the Warriors knocked off Mansfield 83-58 for their 14th straight victory.

Everyone was happy, right? Not exactly.

"As coaches, we kept telling them there were things we needed to get better at," Wilson said. "There were things that maybe we weren't doing a good job at. They were playing with confidence, they were playing with good chemistry, that's never been a problem.

"It's one of those things where a loss or two had to bring us down to earth.

"ESU had spiked into the top 10 nationally, but after three straight losses to Shippensburg (87-77), Millersville (79-69) and West Chester (83-76), the team was in a funk.

For the first time in two months, the Warriors stopped reading the headlines, stopped getting high-fives on campus.

It was a big test for the team, both on and off the court.

"Any team that has a chance to hang a banner is going to go through adversity at some time in the year," Wilson said. "It's how you react to that adversity. I give my guys credit because they reacted to it well. Everybody who was asking them, everybody was patting them on the back two weeks earlier was saying, 'What's happened to you? Why are you in the tank?'"

Leadership played a factor for the Warriors. Whis Grant (17.5 points per game), Duane Johnson (14.2) and Terrance King (13.5) led the way, but overall it was the seniors — the same class who has more games (82) in the last four years, more than any other four-year span — providing leadership.

The team forgot about the 14-game winning streak. They forgot about the rankings because they figured out that mid-season rankings weren't going to help them win a second straight Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference title.

"We had a very honest conversation," Wilson said. "It doesn't really matter outside of this locker room. We have to get back to playing East Stroudsburg basketball. You can't feel sorry for yourselves because no one else does. We just have to go out and play."

And that's what they did Tuesday night, running away with a 102-74 victory over Mansfield in the PSAC quarterfinals.

The win sets up a semifinal showdown with Slippery Rock (21-7) at 5:30 p.m. today at Indiana, Pa. ESU beat the Rock 84-72 earlier this year. But like the long winning streak, that victory means little at this point in the season.

"They're the No. 1 rebounding team in the country Division II," Wilson said. "If you're not worried about that, you have problems."