What stands out most is the chairs. Those darned folding chairs.

It was the first practice in October under new coach Mike Rice for the Robert Morris Colonials.

And there were those chairs.

They were part of a drill where the players put the chairs between their legs and had to make defensive slides.

"I didn't want to do those slides with those chairs," senior Tony Lee said. "Those hurt. It was hard."

"I thought he was crazy," sophomore Jimmy Langhurst said of Rice.

"But we survived it," senior A.J. Jackson said. "[Rice] said it was going to be done with defense. It hurt, but we're doing it now, and it's helping us win, so I'm happy."

Rice's insistence that these Colonials play defense much better than did their predecessors has paid off in a big way.

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Scouting report

• Matchup: Monmouth (7-23) vs. Robert Morris (25-6), 7 p.m. today, Sewall Center, Moon.
• Radio, Internet: WPIT-AM (730), www.sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/collegebroadcast.
• Monmouth: Is 3-11 on road, including 3-6 vs. Northeast Conference teams. ... Has lost three of its past four games. ... Shooting 40.2 percent from field but has shot 46 percent from field over past seven games. ... Shooting 32.6 percent from 3-point range but over past four games has shot 41.1 percent from beyond arc.
• Robert Morris: Is 10-3 at home, including 7-2 vs. NEC teams. ... Has won 13 consecutive games. ... Averaging 75.5 ppg and shooting 46.7 percent from field, both marks tops among NEC teams.
• Hidden stat: Robert Morris hasn't won an NEC tournament home game since beating Marist, 71-52, Feb. 27, 1994.

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Not only did the Colonials build a regular-season record of 25-6, but they also finished 16-2 in the Northeast Conference and secured the top seed for the NEC tournament, which begins tonight. Robert Morris will entertain eighth-seeded Monmouth (7-23, 4-14) at 7 at the Sewall Center.

"I knew if we wanted to win anything or do anything special, we had to play defense," Lee said. "At the same time, I really didn't want to play defense. Playing defense is hard, and it's going to take a lot out of you.

"Getting those stops when you need them is hard. That's why a lot of teams don't get those stops when they need to. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

"But I knew if we wanted to do what we wanted to do we would have to play defense -- and play defense at a high level with some intensity and some enthusiasm."

Last season against NEC teams, the Colonials allowed 74.2 points per game -- eighth in the 11-team league. Their field-goal percentage defense mark of .463 ranked seventh. And their 3-point percentage defense (.389) was ninth.

This season in NEC games in those same categories, the Colonials ranked second (65.5 points per game), third (43.3 percent) and first (30.6 percent).

"They've done a tremendous job," Rice said.

"Nobody wants to defend for 30 seconds -- run here, run there," Lee said. "But it's easier for us now than it was before, so we're willing to do that extra stuff that we probably wouldn't have done last year."

The Colonials will have to maintain that defensive strength tonight against a team that is no stranger to playing tough defense.

Monmouth annually has one of the stingiest defenses in the NEC because the Hawks play primarily a matchup zone.

The Colonials average 75.5 points per game, tops among NEC teams. In sweeping the Hawks in the regular season, however, the Colonials scored a total of 120 points.

That included only 61 in a one-point escape Jan. 31 at Monmouth.

In that game, guard Jhamar Youngblood scored 15 points. Forward Rickie Crews had 10 points and 7 rebounds.

Since then, Crews has been suspended indefinitely and likely will transfer. Youngblood left the team with two games remaining in the regular season and will transfer.

That leaves the Hawks with four freshmen, a sophomore and junior guard Whitney Coleman as their main rotation.

"You deal with a lot of things in coaching, and one of those is dealing with young men," said Monmouth coach Dave Calloway, in his 11th season as the Hawks' head coach. "In our case, we're dealing with young teenagers.

"We had a young man who decided he didn't want to be here and we move on. In the last two games, the guys who do want to be here stepped up."

"It makes a difference for them," Rice said. "Maybe it's addition by subtraction. You never know how teams respond to players leaving the locker room, but their offense certainly is running a lot smoother."