Five semi-useful things to know: Marshall

1.) Marshall is 2-2 and coming off a last-second, 78-77 loss to South Dakota State (HOFSTRA CONNECTION!) in the opener to yesterday’s doubleheader. The Thundering Herd have beaten District of Columbia (HOFSTRA CONNECTION!) and Longwood and fallen to Villanova (HOFSTRA CONNECTION!). Look at all these Hofstra connections. It’s like they’re all playing in the same tournament or something!

2.) Marshall is coached by Tom Herrion, the brother of New Hampshire coach Bill Herrion, who was Drexel’s coach when the Dragons dominated the Dutchmen and the rest of the NAC with the SHAQ OF THE NAC, Malik Rose. Bill Herrion is 9-5 all-time against Hofstra—9-3 with Drexel and 0-2 with New Hampshire.

3.) Hofstra is 0-1 all-time against Marshall. The Thundering Herd beat the Dutchmen, 73-70, during the Great Alaska Shootout in November 2006. Marshall is a member of Conference USA, the future home of Old Dominion (snort) and about 72 other schools located around the world. Marshall is also the first of three C-USA teams Hofstra will face this year. The Dutchmen host SMU on Dec. 1 and play Tulane at the Barclays Center on Dec. 22. Tulane is the only current C-USA school that Hofstra has beaten. The Dutchmen are 1-5 all-time against current C-USA schools, though the conference may have added 102 teams in the time it took me to write this.

4.) If you are of a certain age—i.e. mine—you correlate Marshall with Hofstra football and not Hofstra basketball. Marshall was the first game I ever boarded a plane to cover back in November 1995, when the 10-0 Dutchmen went to West Virginia and blew a late lead in a 30-28 loss to Chad Pennington and the Thundering Herd. Alas, the very cool credential that I saved is buried in a box somewhere at my Dad’s, I’m sure. The Dutchmen went 0-3 all-time against Marshall in football before any existence of football at Hofstra was wiped from the permanent record. (Hey I told you this stuff was only semi-useful)

5.) Mo Cassara said last night that Marshall may be the biggest team the Dutchmen face this year. The Thundering Herd has a remarkable seven players who stand at least 6-foot-8, which means the Dutchmen will need, pardon the pun, big games from their burgeoning front court duo of Jimmy Hall and Moussa Kone. Veterans David Imes and Stephen Nwaukoni will also need to build on the momentum they created yesterday. It will also be interesting to see if Cassara sticks with the eight-man rotation he played yesterday—when Hall, Kone, Imes, Nwaukoni, Stevie Mejia, Shaq Stokes, Taran Buie and Kentrell Washington all played between 14 and 29 minutes—or if Jordan Allen and/or Dallas Anglin can wrangle their way into some extended playing time.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.