Stevie Mejia and Mo Cassara are philosophical about the
twists of fate that have cost Mejia opportunities to enjoy sustained success
during his two seasons with the Flying Dutchmen. But as Mejia prepares to play
his final home game for Hofstra tonight, Cassara can’t help but wish that his
first recruit had a smoother ride in Hempstead.
“Frustrating for a guy that I’ve known a long time,” Cassara
said Tuesday. “Certainly, he wasn’t able to have the career, as far as wins and
losses, that he would have liked to have had, or I would have liked for him to
have.”
Cassara viewed Mejia, who transferred to Hofstra from Rhode
Island in the spring of 2010, as the prototypical point guard who could provide
stability at the position as a junior and senior.
Mejia has certainly met expectations as a leader. He
provided a Jason Hernandez-like impact during his redshirt season, when he
provided feisty daily practice competition for Charles Jenkins and Brad
Kelleher.
But whereas Hernandez got to play two years with one-time
practice foe Speedy Claxton following his redshirt season, Mejia never got to
play a second with Jenkins or Kelleher, both of whom graduated in 2011.
Mejia still had a pair of offensive weapons to work with
last season in Mike Moore and Nathaniel Lester, but just as he was beginning to
establish himself as the Dutchmen’s third option—he averaged 8.7 points per
game on 53 percent shooting in his first seven games—he suffered a hamstring
injury in the final game of the three-game Gazelle Group tournament (grrrr) in
Rhode Island. Mejia missed six of the next eight games and lost his starting
job to Dwan McMillan, who went on to lead the CAA in assists.
A strong finish to last season (Mejia averaged 11.3 ppg and
had an assist-to-turnover ratio of 15:5 in the Dutchmen’s final four regular
season games) generated plenty of optimism for this season, when the Dutchmen
expected to get the services of transfers such as Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and
Taran Buie as well as Cassara’s first wave of freshmen recruits.
Finally surrounded by something resembling a full team, Mejia
provided a glimpse at what he could do as a floor general and sneaky scoring
option when he won the MVP of the Gazelle Group (grrrr) subregional at Hofstra
the weekend before Thanksgiving. In three games—all Dutchmen wins—Mejia scored
47 points on 17-of-30 shooting from the field. He hit all 11 free throw
attempts, pulled down 18 rebounds and had eight assists and three steals.
Of course, as it turned out, that was as good as it was
going to get for the Dutchmen, who were ravaged less than two weeks later when
four players were arrested on burglary charges. In addition, Coombs-McDaniel
never suited up because of multiple knee surgeries.
“Stevie’s been through a real challenging time, he’s never
had a full complement of guys to play with,” Cassara said. “His ability to run a team and run the show and get guys
shots and then playoff those guys makes him super efficient. Unfortunately, we
haven’t been able to play a full year or a full healthy year.”
“At times, it’s frustrating,” Mejia said. “After it
happened, that [arrest] situation, I can’t control any of that. I just try to
do the things that I can control.
“[When] it’s frustrating on the court, I’ve got to play
through that. I’m going out there and controlling what I can control. I can put
myself and teammates in good position to score, I can do that.”
Mejia has been able to set the tone for the depleted
Dutchmen since the arrests. Mejia’s constant effort has defined the persistence
of a team that is 4-17 since the arrests but has lost seven games by seven
points or less.
He is averaging a team-high 33.8 minutes per game and has
played more than 100 minutes more than anyone else on the team. Unofficially,
he leads the Dutchmen in floor burns, and he continued diving all over the
court even during the second half of last Wednesday’s 79-50 loss to George
Mason.
Buie initially became the Dutchmen’s new top scoring option
by averaging 15.3 ppg in the first 13 post-arrest games, but a mammoth shooting
slump—Buie is shooting just 22.4 percent in the last nine games—has forced
Mejia to shoulder more of the offensive burden.
It hasn’t always been pretty—Mejia is just 4-of-24 from the
field in his last two games and also shot 3-of-11 against UNCW on Jan. 26 and
3-of-14 against William & Mary on Feb. 2—but his numbers this month are all
well above his career norms. He’s averaging 13.9 points, 4.2 assists, 3.8
rebounds and 2.2 steals per game since February 1. Overall at Hofstra, he’s
averaging 8.8 points, 3.2 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game.
He had perhaps his finest game on Feb. 13, when Mejia led
the Dutchmen in points, rebounds, assists and steals against Georgia State—a
quadruple crown of sorts that even Jenkins never accomplished. And in the CAA
opener against Georgia State Jan. 7. Mejia drained the last-second basket to
end an eight-game losing streak and lift the Dutchmen past Georgia State in the
CAA opener on Jan. 7.
While Mejia’s two years at Hofstra have not gone as he would
have liked, he will still look back fondly at his time with the Dutchmen and identify
Hofstra as his true basketball alma mater.
“This is where I really played basketball,” Mejia said. “Playing
at Rhode Island, I just felt like I was more of a robot just running the team.
Here, I’m free to do what I want with being a point guard and having the
freedom [of] being able to create more.”
Said Cassara: “I’m proud of him. He’s graduated, he’s fought
through what have been some difficult situations. He’s had to be the leader and
the face of this season and has had to battle and be really the player we rely
on every night.”
Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com
or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.
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