Matt Goldsmith has been through enough New Jersey Athletic Conference battles to know you can never take anything for granted. Could The College of New Jersey men’s basketball team have been caught lounging around as the defending champion and the team selected first in the preseason poll when they dropped three conference games before the holiday break? TCNJ is 6-0 in the non-conference part of the schedule and 2-3 in the NJAC and when Rowan (7-5, 4-1 NJAC) visits Packer Hall on Wednesday it’ll be nothing but league games the rest of the way. “The most important thing after the break was to find our sense of urgency again,’’ said Goldsmith. “In basketball, you need to earn everything you get by working daily. I thought we went away from that a bit.’’ Rowan comes into the game having dropped two of the last three, while the Lions have won two straight. But in the 2023-24 NJAC playoffs, Rowan was the top-seed and TCNJ took it down in route to the conference title. S, the Profs could be looking for a little revenge. “It is a perfect test for us,’’ Goldsmith stated. “Everyone is coming for us, we are the defending champs, we were picked to finish first in the league. We need to match everyone’s energy every night.’’ The Lions will be looking to match the energy with the likes of Nick Koch, who leads the team in scoring (21.7) and assists (56), Matthew Okorie averages 14 points, Matthew Solomon averages 11.4 points and leads in rebounding with 8,4 caroms, and Jack Vreeswyk gets 10.9 points. Jonathan Okocha, David Alexandre, Anthony Milligan and Khalid Bakare round out the Lions rotation. Rowan has been led by Khalif Meares with 23.7 points, Danny Fleming averages 13.2 and former Steinert player Jamir Spivey leads in rebounding with 6.3 per game. “It is all about the defense,’’ said Goldsmith. “If we can play with desperation on the defensive end, our offense will follow suit.’’ It’s certainly surprising and disappointing that TCNJ finds itself behind Stockton (5-0), Rowan (4-1), Ramapo (3-2), Montclair State (3-2), NJCU (3-2) and Kean (3-2) in the standings. There’s still a lot of basketball to be played and plenty of time for the Lions to be the team it’s believed to be. “Again, the sense of urgency needs to be better,’’ said Goldsmith. “If you do not bring your best every night, you will get beat. It is that simple. Our league is one of the best in the country and we need to treat it as such.’’ The 10th-year coach has had the Lions in the NJAC playoffs every year and has won the title twice and hopes they have given their surprising conference start some thought. “I think the lessons we learned in December have set us up to have success in January and February,’’ declared Goldsmith. “We have to keep those lessons at the front of our mind if we want to have success in 2025.’’