Most coaches will attest that no matter how proud they may be of their team's effort, a moral victory is not a sufficient substitute for an actual win. Especially against a conference foe.

So it goes that even though they were in the hunt right to end, the Beavers of CCNY still would rather have ended their night triumphantly than losing by 84-78 to Hunter on Tuesday evening.

CCNY saw their record slip to 2-4 and 0-2 in the CUNYAC. Meanwhile, Hunter earned their first win of the season and is now 1-4 after winning in their home building, the Hunter College Sportsplex.

Heeding the words of coach Andre Stampfel, who admitted last week that his team was flat in the first half of their 2004-05 conference debut against Lehman at the Nat Holman Gymnasium, the Beavers had enough charge in them to take a 36-30 lead against Hunter by halftime.

Shooting at a 44.4% rate (16-36 from the field), CCNY bettered Hunter's 10-31(32.3%) endeavor and seemed to have recovered well from the back-to-back defeats at last weekend's Skidmore Invitational Tournament.

With each Hunter miss, the Beavers made sure that they limited their opponents' second chance attempts. Overall, CCNY out-rebounded Hunter 38-28.

Offensively, this was perhaps the best total team contribution CCNY has had all season. Led by the impressive senior guard Avain Gourdine from the Bronx and Manhattan Center High School, who tallied 21 points, six rebounds and three assists, the Beavers seemed locked in on gaining another win.

Sophomore guard James Boddie of Castle Hill in the Bronx (8-11 shooting, 16 points), senior Darryl France from South Ozone Park (13 points, nine rebounds) and the sophomore from Brownsville, Brooklyn, Robert Barker (12 points and six rebounds) all provided noteworthy offensive numbers.

 Unfortunately, their offerings were offset by Hunter's Gerard Ciarleglio (29 points, seven rebounds), Naeem Mahmood (19 points, eight rebounds) and Arsen Kotrri (14 points), principally in the second half. Hunter was clearly a different team after the break and outscored CCNY 54-42.

Out of all the aforementioned statistics, none are as revealing as the discrepancy in free throw attempts. It is from the foul that Hunter made their comeback and sealed the win.

Chew on these numbers: Hunter canned 19-28 free throws while the Beavers only connected on 3-6. And in the second half CCNY was a barren 0-2.