Another one of those Friday mornings where I rub the sleep
out of my eyes while trying to process lousy news about the Hofstra athletic
department. Hofstra issued a press release at 10:09 in which it announced that
Mo Cassara will not return as head coach. That’s a nice way, of course, of
saying he got fired.
(For those of you just stopping by for the first time,
previous Friday mornings from hell include learning the news of Halil Kanacevic
announcing his plans to transfer, Tim Welsh getting arrested for DUI and four
total morons getting arrested for stealing anything at Hofstra that wasn’t
locked down)
Assistant coach Patrick Sellers has been named the interim
coach. He and athletic director Jeff Hathaway will conduct a press conference
at 1 p.m.
That Cassara has been dismissed after three seasons—the last
of which was amongst the worst in program history, on and especially off the
court—isn’t stunning, though the timing is awkward. Well, some of it anyway.
Hofstra making this announcement on the first Friday of the NCAA
Tournament—thereby ensuring its news cycle will last no longer than one of
Molly’s diapers—is the most #ThatsSoHofstra thing and a move any presidential
administration would admire.
Cassara gets the boot 13 days after the Dutchmen concluded a
7-25 season and just eight days after highly touted recruit Gabe Levin
committed to Hofstra, which appeared to put the finishing bow on an impressive
seven-player class heavy on prep schoolers. It was an aggressive approach by
Cassara, one that was the complete opposite of the recruiting philosophy that
got him into trouble in the first place.
Alas, the recruits who got Cassara in trouble weren’t done
getting him in trouble. UConn transfer Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, who never played
a second for the Flying Dutchmen due to chronic knee woes, was arrested for
marijuana possession last Friday (THERE IT IS AGAIN) following a traffic stop
in Brooklyn.
And Newsday’s Steven Marcus reported this morning that
Cassara told him Taran Buie, the Penn State transfer, was arrested earlier this
week for a traffic violation.
That’s a mind-boggling six arrests involving Hofstra players—all
Cassara recruits—in the last four months. This latest wave of bad publicity was
likely the clichéd final straw for university president Stuart Rabinowitz.
Sellers’ interim appointment indicates Hathaway and the
university are hopeful of keeping this recruiting class together, but whether
or not that happens remains to be seen. All that is certain now is the Flying
Dutchmen program, once the beacon of stability, is in transition once again.
Hard to believe that three years ago this week, the Dutchmen
had one of the longest-tenured coaches in the CAA, the reigning conference
player of the year and two members of the all-rookie team. Today, the program
is decimated and those of us who follow it are once again asking “Now what?”
Perhaps this time we’ll finally like the answer.
Those of us who played sports (played being a very broad and
generous term, in some of our cases) long before we started writing about them
can’t remember a time when we weren’t constantly reminded that sports teaches
life lessons.
Honestly, most of the time, it’s a bunch of hooey. We are
most often told sports is a metaphor for life after a tough season-ending loss,
but let’s face it, we have known since we were as tall as the letters on this
screen that only one team ends a season happy, and it’s usually not ours. To
try and ascribe greater meaning to it is just a way of dulling the pain.
The sports-as-life sermon is also a handy excuse for coaches
to stroke their egos and remind us there was a deeper purpose to the work they do
directing the baseball, football or cross country teams. Alas, baseball is
usually as simple as pitching the ball, hitting the ball and fielding the ball.
Football is usually no more than an opportunity to engage in legalized
felonious violence. And cross country really is as simple as running aimlessly in
the woods because you weren’t good enough to make the baseball or football
teams (or so I have heard).
But once in a while, there really are life lessons to be
taught in the games we play and watch. And unfortunately for the Flying
Dutchmen, there were more life lessons than wins in the 2012-13 season, which
came to an ending equal parts merciful and bittersweet Saturday night with a
62-57 loss to Delaware in the quarterfinals of the CAA Tournament.
The Dutchmen’s 21st loss in 25 games since the
arrests of the four knuckleheads was like most of the first 20 defeats. They
played well in spurts and hard the whole time, and displayed impressive resiliency
in shaving a 10-point deficit to three late in the second half.
Stevie Mejia (13 points), Taran Buie (13 points) and David
Imes (12 points) all scored in double figures for the Dutchmen, which marked
the 12th time in those 25 games that at least three players scored
10 points—not bad for a team that is down to seven scholarship players and will
finish the season as one of the worst offensive teams in the country.
But as always, the Dutchmen were done in by lapses that were
usually as brief as they were costly. Emptying the tank was not enough for the
Dutchmen, who needed a little bit more (they were 0-for-5 from the free throw
line in the second half, including four missed front ends of 1-and-1s) or a
little bit less (first half fouls for Moussa Kone or turnovers to start the
second half) to pull off the upset.
Hofstra lost 11 of its last 12 games decided by seven points
or less. In seven of those defeats, the Dutchmen were either tied or had a
chance to tie or take the lead in the final minute.
“It’s a little bit of our story all year,” Mo Cassara said
from his hotel room late Saturday night. “Our margin for error’s just very
small. Some guys have got to play great and we have to not turn the ball over
and make free throws. And, again, tonight, there were stretches of the game we
didn’t do that.”
In that regard, the end of the season provides waves of
relief. It’s finally over. There are no more cruelties and near-misses to
suffer, no more emotional roller coasters to ride. We can all finally begin to
shake off the most grueling season most of us have ever observed or endured and
look forward to brighter days.
But the ending, for all of its predictability and
inevitability, still left the Dutchmen aching, because they truly believed they
would pen the most unlikely Cinderella story and Hollywood ending in NCAA
history.
“Our guys really felt like we could win three games,”
Cassara said. “We felt like we could win tonight. We went into the game as a
pretty significant underdog and we’re up at halftime and we put ourselves in a
position to win.”
But there’s a reason a Hollywood ending isn’t called a
Peoria ending, and so the Dutchmen were left to contemplate a season filled
with lessons that are tough to absorb and appreciate in the moment.
“That’s a tough locker room, because part of you is
frustrated with the mistakes you made—a couple critical errors, a couple shots
we might have missed or a couple free throws we didn’t [make],” Cassara said.
“But I’m so proud of that group of guys. Not only did they battle and find a
way to be competitive every game, they endured a lot. They had to deal with a
lot throughout the course of this year, on and off the court. And they stayed
the course and remained competitive. How many games did we have that were
[decided by] a couple possessions?”
Cassara paused.
“I’m rambling here a little bit,” he said, his voice
scratchy and subdued. “So upset. Those guys went through a lot and I gotta give
them a lot of credit.”
The Dutchmen were reminded Saturday, for the last time this
season, that doing your best often does not translated into the desired result.
You can work as hard as possible, care as much as possible and have as much
faith in the process as possible and still not achieve your goals.
You can wake up early and go to bed late and spend every
moment in between sketching out how you want to build the program, as Cassara
did last spring and summer, and the vagaries of fate in the fall—a hurricane
and a career-ending injury to a potential superstar—can leave you staggered and
render much of your work useless.
And sometimes, fate will deliver the knockout blow in the
form of four players stealing anything they could get their hands on, which
teaches the harshest lesson of all: You will regularly be disappointed by those
you trusted and relied upon, and forced to be accountable for and clean up the
mess they created.
“There were so many life lessons in this season, from
weather challenges to facility challenges to friends and teammates making
really bad decisions and having to live with those decisions,” Cassara said.
“Some lessons that I think some guys are going to have to take personally, our
team has to take as a whole.”
One of those lessons they, and we, may be reminded of in the
coming years is that effort and character are not always immediately rewarded,
and that the rewards are often earned by those who don’t deserve them.
The arrests of their ex-teammates wrecked the last lap
around the track for seniors Mejia, Imes and Matt Grogan and cost underclassmen
Buie, Kone, Stephen Nwaukoni and Jordan Allen a precious season they’ll never
get back.
Meanwhile, the three thieves who can still transfer to
another Division I school will almost surely get a second chance. And let’s
face it: As decimated as the Dutchmen are right now, there’s a pretty good
chance that one, two or three of those undeserving rotten apples will make the
NCAA Tournament before Hofstra does. That’ll be only slightly less painful than
Selection Sunday 2006.
When there’s nothing left to do but pick up the pieces, affirmation
must be found in intangibles. At some point out there in the real world, the
Dutchmen who endured the last 25 games will rely on the experiences of this
season to guide them through other challenges in the workplace and elsewhere.
That’s little consolation right now, of course. All they can
do now is take solace in knowing they performed with pride, and that the effort
forged a collective lifetime bond within the team while earning acknowledgment
and appreciation from others who were invested in their performance.
“I gave my all,” Imes said. “I could not ask for anybody
else to go through this with.”
“We’ve been fighting all year,” Mejia said. “I would not
want to do it with anyone but these guys on my side.”
“I told our guys after the game: The wins and losses don’t
really represent what we’ve been through, what we’ve learned and what we’ve
endured,” Cassara said.
Four fools ruined a season. But those they left behind to
pick up the pieces restored the Pride to Hofstra basketball. And when the
brighter days arrive, nobody will forget who navigated the Flying Dutchmen
through the darkest of times.
Nineteen years ago Wednesday, I accompanied a bunch of my
childhood chums from Connecticut to a Bryan Adams concert at Madison Square
Garden. It was, if I recall correctly, his only American show of that leg of
his tour, so it was a pretty big deal to score these tickets.
The tickets seemed even more valuable once the pre-show buzz
began building that Sting—who was playing in the Theatre just downstairs the
same night—would show up and perform with Adams the no. 1 hit “All For Love,”
the Alpha Male duet (three-et?) that Adams, Sting and Rod Stewart recorded for
The Three Musketeers movie the previous fall.
Sure enough, at some point during the encores, out came
Sting in all his Tantric glory to team up with Adams for what I believe remains
the only time two-thirds of its performers teamed up to sing “All For Love” live.
In case Litos thinks I made this up, too.
It was pretty great. It was historic, even. It remains a
fond memory for me and the five hometown friends who later crowded into my dorm
room.
(At some other time, perhaps, I will explain the whole
concept of how, in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-four, Bryan Adams managed
to sell out Madison Square Garden and how a bombastic movie theme performed by
three staples of album rock radio managed to top the charts more than two years
after album rock radio was killed by Nirvana)
And the whole time I was walking Manhattan, listening to
Bryan Adams and dividing six people into a double (that’s a math term only
Hofstra grads will get), I was wishing I’d spent the day several hundred miles
upstate watching something even greater, more historic and more memorable: The
final East Coast Conference men’s basketball championship game, which Hofstra
won by beating Northeastern Illinois, 88-86, in double overtime in an
appropriately empty gym at the University of Buffalo and in front of a national
TV audience of dozens on a fledgling, never-gonna-make-it network called ESPN2.
The Flying Dutchmen’s dramatic title-clinching win capped a
stunning weekend sweep—Hofstra won three games in three days after winning six
games in the season’s first 94 days—while sending Butch van Breda Kolff out a
winner and ensuring a lifetime of second-guessing a decision I made pretty
easily weeks earlier, when the business manager at The Chronicle, the school
newspaper, asked me if I wanted to take an all-expenses-paid trip to Buffalo to
cover the tournament.
Being only 20, I had no idea that nobody in the real world
would ever pay for me to go anywhere (only expecting me to go everywhere and
cover everything on my own dime). Plus, the Dutchmen were about 1-15 at the
time and I was still a bit homesick after my sister’s serious car accident the
prior October.
Plus, dude, Bryan Adams at Madison Square Garden.
The tournament began the same day as Hofstra’s mini-spring
break and I wanted to go home for a couple days before heading back for the
show. So I declined the offer, and the regret built as the Dutchmen beat
Chicago State on Friday and then edged top-seeded Troy State in double overtime
on Saturday. I think Hofstra beat Northeastern Illinois during our drive down
from Connecticut. How I found this out, I’m not entirely sure. It was 1994, we
didn’t have the Internet on our cell phones, or the Internet, or cell phones.
All I know is I was immediately bummed out and haven’t stopped kicking myself
since.
It was a defining moment in my life, one in which I
transformed myself from just another rabid sports fan to an extraordinarily
abnormal and lonely one. Every should-I-go-or-shouldn’t-I-go decision is now
made with the worry that if I don’t go, I’ll miss something unforgettable and
miraculous.
Rarely has that philosophy so dominated my thoughts, nor
been more severely tested, than during this most grueling of Hofstra seasons—the
worst one for the Flying Dutchmen, in fact, since that 1993-94 campaign.
With bills to pay and a beautiful baby to take care of,
getting up and going to a basketball tournament six-plus hours away isn’t nearly
as easy now as it was then. It became increasingly clear, as the losses piled
up for the Dutchmen, that there’d be no way to justify a trip, even before my
wife learned she had parent-teacher conferences on Monday and before she came
down with a sinus infection this week.
(Would have been easier to justify the trip if Gary Moore
was here to drive me to and fro like last year, but he went and moved to South
Carolina for the betterment of his family. Whatevs)
Even the most optimistic of daydreamers has found it tough
to muster up a scenario in which the Dutchmen exit Richmond with the automatic
bid. The Dutchmen, the seventh seed in a seven-team tournament, have been
crippled by the bad judgment “employed” by four idiots and the bad luck
suffered by Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Stephen Nwaukoni. Hofstra went 4-14 in a
historically downtrodden CAA, including 1-11 against the other six teams
playing in Richmond.
The math is even more imposing than it was 19 years ago. The
Dutchmen need to win three games in three days with a depleted squad after
winning four games in the previous 110 days.
And have we really stopped to consider the absurdity of the
Dutchmen making the NCAA Tournament with a 10-24 record? That would be, by far,
the worst record ever for a March Madness entrant.
Yet…yet we allow ourselves to dream, and hope we are equal
parts ecstatic and regretful when the Dutchmen are playing for all the marbles
on Monday night. We’ve spent the last three-plus months dealing with reality,
what’s wrong with a little engaging in a little fantasy this week, and hoping
it lasts all weekend?
OF COURSE it’s not likely. OF COURSE the season will likely
end tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.
But if ever there was a year for a 10-24 team to take the
CAA, this is it. The league is, how shall we put it, not very good. Top-seeded
Northeastern just lost to last-place Old Dominion.
And unlike last year, when the Dutchmen were the 11th
seed in a 12-team tournament, there are no potential matchups that scream
BLOWOUT LOSS. Northeastern and second-seeded Delaware combined to go 4-0
against the Dutchmen, but with a combined margin of victory of just 26 points.
Stevie Mejia is playing out of his mind and is the type of
guy who can will a team to jump upon his shoulders. Fellow senior David Imes is
playing with a similar ferociousness. Moussa Kone emerged last week, almost
overnight, as a potential all-CAA big man.
The Dutchmen are a good defensive team that forces opponents
to play their sludgy brand of ball. Sludgy wins at the Richmond Coliseum. If
Mejia, Imes and Kone are clicking, all the Dutchmen need is one more guy to
contribute offensively to have a real shot. Taran Buie could negate an entire
season of ice-cold shooting by ironically (in that it actually WOULD be ironic)
finding his stroke in Richmond, which is where jump shots go to die.
All the pressure is on everyone else. Win one game, get some
momentum and who knows what can happen?
Plus, the second weekend of March 2013 has some uncanny
similarities to the first weekend in March 1994. The CAA probably won’t go the
way of the ECC, but this is the smallest and weakest tournament the Dutchmen
have participated in since exiting the ECC.
With the usual hometown favorite VCU preparing to head to
Brooklyn for the Atlantic 10 tournament, most of this weekend’s games are
likely to be played in an empty arena and viewed only by diehard fans whose
cable system is big enough to include a fledgling, never-gonna-make-it network
called NBC Sports Network.
And—AND—Stephen Gorchov will be there. The one-time men’s
basketball student manager, who garnered his 7.5 seconds of fame by hugging
Butch van Breda Kolff as a Sports Illustrated photographer captured the moment
for all-time (except it never made the magazine), is now the men’s basketball
sports information director.
See? It’s destiny.
So c’mon Dutchmen. Make me regret this decision. Do it so I
can finally say “I told you so” to my wife (another thing I’ve been waiting for
since 1994). Do it so that 19 years from now, I’m telling Molly to make the
trip to Spokane to watch Hofstra compete in the 38-team America 12 tournament.
Do it for those of us with the dreamers’ disease. If nothing
else, do it for Bryan Adams and Sting.
Former Flying Dutchwomen basketball coach Ron Rohn.
Those of us who actually remember seeing East Coast
Conference games at the Physical Fitness Center know it’s possible for the
Flying Dutchmen to pen a Hollywood ending to a nightmarish season by winning
the CAA Tournament with three victories in as many days.
But three years before the Flying Dutchmen won the final ECC tournament by winning half as many games in three days as it did all season, another
Hofstra basketball team pulled off an even more impressive long-shot feat by
simply getting to the ECC championship game.
Indeed, to this day, former Flying Dutchwomen head coach Ron
Rohn marvels at the mathematical impossibility of what his understaffed team
accomplished by reaching the 1991 ECC title game following a 2-25 regular
season.
“At that time, the maximum games to play in the regular
season was 27,” Rohn said Friday night from his home in Pennsylvania. “So to go
4-26, I don’t think anybody had ever done that. Because you would have to be
2-25 and then make the finals of your tournament. Who would ever do that?”
Hofstra did that over a wild week in March 1991, when, as
the seventh seed in the seven-team ECC tournament, the Dutchwomen upset
Maryland-Baltimore County and Rider before falling to top-seeded Delaware,
60-52, in the championship game.
Win or lose, the Dutchwomen’s season was ending in the title
game. There was no automatic bid to be won for the ECC, which is just one
example of how the college basketball landscape—particularly for women—has
changed drastically over the last generation.
“[Today], if we won that game against Delaware, we would
have been the lead story on SportsCenter for three or four days—a team that was
[5-25] and going to the NCAA Tournament,” Rohn said. “We would be playing
[Baylor star] Brittney Griner and counting how many times she dunked on us.
Different world.”
Still, that Flying Dutchwomen squad offers plenty of
parallels to the current Dutchmen as they attempt to author their own
Cinderella story by winning the seven-team CAA tournament as the seventh seed.
The 1990-91 Dutchwomen were a depleted squad that entered
the tournament with just seven scholarship players and a roster filled out by
walk-ons. These Dutchmen, of course, will have seven scholarship players and
four walk-ons in uniform this weekend in Richmond thanks to the arrests of the
four knuckleheads and the season-ending injuries suffered by Jamal
Coombs-McDaniel and Stephen Nwaukoni.
“We had to suit up our manager, just in case,” Rohn said. “I
remember in the last regular season game, we were actually close enough to have
a chance to foul a few times and maybe get back in the game. We actually put
her in the game, just one of those ‘Kid, go in there and foul the kid who gets
the ball’ [situations] because we couldn’t afford our regular players to get any
more fouls.
“We had a girl break her foot, we had another kid who [tore]
an ACL. It was interesting, to say the least.”
Those Dutchwomen specialized in the near-miss during the
regular season, when 13 of their 25 defeats were by eight points or less. Of
the 24 losses the Dutchmen have suffered this season, 11 have been by eight
points or less, including a one-point loss 10 days ago to tonight’s opponent,
Delaware.
Rohn, like Mo Cassara this year, saw improvement even if it
wasn’t translating into victories. The Dutchwomen opened the year with eight
straight losses before beating St. Francis, after which they lost 15 in a row
before knocking off Towson State.
“We were close to beating a lot of these teams in the
regular season,” Rohn said, “It wasn’t like we were losing to the Delawares and
Riders by 50 and then all of a sudden we knocked them off in the tournament.
There wasn’t that big of a difference by the end.”
“As a coach you sort of try to judge yourself on getting the
most out of your talent. And that year, we really got the most out of our
talent. Because there was a lot of games we lost by six or eight points that we
probably should have lost by 20, But we found a way.”
Rohn said the lure of a postseason tournament, and the possibility
of ending the season on a positive note, helped keep the Dutchwomen motivated
as the losses piled up.
“One of the big benefits of having a conference tournament
is that players and coaches can sort of take the approach of ‘Hey, as long as
we keep working hard and keep getting better, then we can still win the
thing,’” Rohn said. ”[It’s] a reason to keep playing, as opposed to just
cashing it in for the last month of the season.”
The Dutchwomen had one benefit the Dutchmen won’t get this
weekend. After traveling to second-seeded UMBC and pulling off the 54-52 upset
win, the Dutchwomen had three days off before traveling to Delaware, which was
hosting the semifinals and finals.
In addition to taking advantage of the extra rest, Rohn used
the break to dig into his bag of motivational tricks, Before the Dutchwomen
left for Delaware, Rohn brought a ladder into the PFC.
“We climbed up on it and we practiced cutting down the
nets,” Rohn said. “I wanted to convince them that we had a chance to win, I
don’t want to embarrass ourselves when we win down there and we don’t know how
to cut down the nets.”
The Dutchwomen moved within one win of cutting down the nets
by beating Rider 64-56. Rohn began to wonder if the Dutchwomen were charmed
when foul trouble late in the second half forced him to put in one of the
walk-ons, a player who he said had a hard time even maintaining a dribble. The
first time she touched the ball, she drained a 15-footer from the corner.
“Nothing but net,” Rohn said. “And you’re sort of like, maybe
it’s just meant to be.”
Alas, the impossible dream came to an end the next day
against the Blue Hens. A late comeback attempt by the Dutchwomen ended when star
Betsy Lange, who finished her career as the fifth-leading scorer in school
history, suffered a torn ACL when she was hit going up for a fast break layup.
Twenty-two years later, one of the most unique tournament
runs in Hofstra history remains a fond memory for Rohn, who coached two more
seasons at Hofstra before spending six seasons as the head coach at Colgate. He
has spent the last 11 years at Division III Muhlenberg, whom he has directed to
seven 20-win seasons.
Rohn is hilariously self-deprecating about Hofstra’s brush
with history and how short-lived the honeymoon was during their two-game winning
streak.
“True story about beating UMBC down there and then taking
the bus home in the middle of the night,” Rohn said. “Stop at a rest stop to
get something to eat and we’re so excited. We’re big stars. We just won this
big tournament game.
“And we’re not at the rest stop five minutes and Penn
State’s [women’s basketball] bus pulls in,” Rohn said. “Number one in the
country [Penn State finished 29-2]. You have one of those years you can’t even
be the best team at your rest stop on I-95.”
He was likewise quick with a crack when asked if he had any
advice for Cassara heading into this weekend, though he did eventually offer
words of wisdom on how a team can turn a forgettable regular season into a
tournament run to remember.
“You want advice from someone who went 2-25? Stay away from
sharp objects,” Rohn said with a laugh. “I think you go in there, you have fun.
You just have a chance—sort of like the American dream. A second chance, that
second opportunity. Let’s face it: My guess is if they go down there and just
win their first tournament game, that will make the season for all the kids
left on the team.
“You get to play loose and without any pressure. And funny
things can happen when you do that.”
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season,
partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood but mostly because
this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I hate the idea of not
properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up with a compromise
that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a basic, quick-hit
fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I
should consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into
this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: For the second time in as many games, the Dutchmen
took the no. 2 team in the CAA to the wire. (Technicality: Delaware draws the
no. 2 seed in this weekend’s tournament because Towson—which actually finished
ahead of the Blue Hens via tiebreakers—is ineligible for the postseason. You
may have read about it) The Dutchmen again raced out to a big start as they
took a 12-2 lead and were again resilient in the second half, when they fell
behind by eight a bit just before the halfway mark yet carried a two-point lead
into the under-4 timeout (sound familiar?). And they almost pulled off an
incredible, Reggie Miller-esque comeback from a six-point deficit in the final two
seconds (but they didn’t, so you’ll read about it in The Bad).
Moussa Kone had the most efficient game by a Dutchmen player
in the post-Jenkins era by scoring a career-high 20 points (the second straight
game he broke his previous best) on 10-of-13 shooting. He also shared the team
lead in rebounds (five), assists (three) and steals (one) with, you guessed it,
Stevie Mejia, who also tied a career high with 22 points. Mejia had his own 7-0
run to pull the Dutchmen within one point with seven minutes to play and
converted an old-fashioned 3-point play to give Hofstra a 53-50 lead with five
minutes to go.
The trio of Mejia, Kone and David Imes (10 points and five
rebounds) was almost enough to spoil Towson’s final game at the Towson Center.
The three combined to score 21 straight points for Hofstra over the final 10
minutes. And the Dutchmen hit all nine of their free throws, a welcome change for
a team that ranks among the worst free throw shooting squads in the country.
THE BAD: The Dutchmen squandered a lead of at least eight points
and lost for the sixth time this season. Towson’s 19-4 run—which happened right
after the Dutchmen scored the first five points of the second half to extend
their lead to seven points—proved to be the difference. Taran Buie drained his
first shot of the game, a 3-pointer 89 seconds into the game, and then missed
his final eight attempts including six from beyond the arc. Kone, Mejia and
Imes were a combined 20-of-32 from the field while the rest of their teammates
were 4-of-19.
And the Dutchmen capped a regular season filled with
agonizing near-misses in appropriate fashion over the final six seconds. Matt Grogan
drained a desperation, H-O-R-S-E-esque 3-pointer (the shot somehow banked in
off the far right backboard and through the net) to provide what seemed to be a
meaningless final bucket with a second to play. But Towson turned the ball over
on the inbounds, which gave the Dutchmen one more shot. Alas, Hofstra was out
of timeouts and Mejia took the inbounds pass from Grogan and missed a wild 3-pointer
from the right corner as the buzzer sounded. The two seniors trudged off the
floor together, with Grogan draping an arm over Mejia’s shoulders, as Towson
fans stormed the court to celebrate the greatest turnaround in Division I
history.
THE QUIRKY: Grogan’s 3-pointer gave him 98 career points.
Towson swept the season series from Hofstra for the first time since the
1990-91 season. The Dutchmen went 30-8 against Towson between sweeps.
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I
hate the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up
with a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a
basic, quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I
should consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into
this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: SWEET FANCIFUL JESUS HOFSTRA WON! For just the
fourth time in 22 post-arrests games, the Flying Dutchmen got to exit the floor
with smiles on their faces. All caveats apply about the dismantled state of
once-proud Old Dominion—with this result, the Monarchs officially locked up
their first last-place CAA finish, hey, that means Hofstra won’t finish
last!—but this was an impressively thorough win, the rare one in which there were
more candidates for the 3 Stars Of the Game than spots available.
Four players scored in double figures for only the second
time in the post-knucklehead era and Moussa Kone came one point shy of making
it five. David Imes began an impressive final week of regular season play by
scoring 15 of his team-high 18 points and pulling down five of his six rebounds
during a monstrous second half. He hit four 3-pointers, one shy of his
career-high. A mammoth final 20 minutes was also enjoyed by, of all people,
Daquan Brown, who struggled badly in the first half but had all six of his
points and all 11 of his rebounds after intermission. He had almost as many
rebounds in a single half as he did in his first 17 games (14 rebounds).
Imes, Brown, Kone and Jordan Allen (10 points) combined to
shoot 63 percent (19-of-30) from the floor. Taran Buie scored 15 points and
Stevie Mejia more than made up for a second straight poor shooting night
(2-of-11) by dishing out 10 assists and committing just one turnover. The
Dutchmen used second half runs of 14-1 and 12-1 to pull away and limited Old
Dominion to 4-of-22 shooting from 3-point land.
THE BAD: Hey, the Dutchmen won, let’s not get picky. Well,
there was the blown 10-point lead in the first half, which Old Dominion ended
on a 23-10 run to take a one-point lead into the locker room. And the Dutchmen
almost blew another double-digit lead in the second half, when their 10-1 run
was immediately followed by an 8-0 Old Dominion run. Buie (5-of-18) and Mejia
combined to shoot just 7-of-29. But who cares? HEY HOFSTRA WON!
THE QUIRKY: The game was the Dutchmen’s first home
conference game on a Sunday since Feb. 11, 2001, when the Dutchmen beat
Hartford, 73-54, in Jay Wright’s regular season home finale. The 70-59 win was
the Dutchmen’s second conference win by that score this season (William &
Mary on Jan. 12). And my streak of home games attended came to a halt at 49
because of Islanders duty across the street. Perhaps I should attend home games
less often: Since I started the blog prior to the 2008-09 season, the Dutchmen
are 4-1 without me in attendance and 4-0 when both my wife and I are absent.
That’s right: Everything is my fault.
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I
hate the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up
with a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a
basic, quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I
should consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into
this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: Well, Jaime Larranaga—i.e. The Great Satan—was
nowhere to be seen. Larranaga was surely peeved to see that his gentlemanly
replacement, Paul Hewitt, eased off the pedal once the Patriots expanded their
lead to 32 points with under eight minutes to play. He was also surely furious
that the walk-ons got some serious run and that Hewitt pulled Cassara aside for
a pep talk following the post-game handshake. I think Jaime is still mad that
Mo was outside of the coaches’ box during Hofstra’s win over Mason in January
2011.
Nobody got punched in the nuts. Moussa Kone had nine points
and six rebounds and once again tied a post-arrests season high with 25 minutes
played. Matt Grogan tied his career high with seven points, the fourth time
this year he’s scored seven points. The Dutchmen didn’t lose by 30! And nobody
got punched in the nuts, probably because Jaime Larranaga was nowhere to be
seen.
THE BAD: Everything else. Playing 48 hours after the loss to
Drexel in which Stephen Nwaukoni suffered a season-ending shoulder injury, the
Dutchmen looked like an exhausted, depleted team in a wire-to-wire defeat. The
Dutchmen were an unsightly 4-of-27 from the field in the first half and
remained within shouting distance (they were down seven with 2:38 left) only
because Mason was still reeling from a Homecoming drubbing by Georgia State
four days earlier. Once the Patriots shook the malaise, the rout was on. Mason
led by 17 two minutes into the second and went on a 25-8 run later in the half
to take that 32-point lead at 70-38.
Taran Buie led the Dutchmen with 12 points, but was 5-of-21
from the field, including 1-of-10 from 3-point land. Stevie Mejia had four
assists and two steals but otherwise had his worst game in weeks as he scored
eight points on 2-of-13 shooting from the field and 4-of-9 from the free throw
line. Can’t win when your guards are 7-of-34 from the field and 1-of-13 from
beyond the arc.
THE QUIRKY: The loss was the worst regular season home loss
for Hofstra during the #CAAHoops era and the Dutchmen’s second-worst conference
regular season loss in that span (behind a 77-46 loss to Old Dominion March 1,
2003). It was also the worst home loss since a 100-71 drubbing at the hands of
Malik Rose and Drexel way back on Jan. 6, 1996—so long ago, I was still a
student. Darren Payen made his first start and scored two points and pulled
down four rebounds in 20 minutes, his most extensive playing time since his
collegiate debut against SMU on Dec. 1.
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I
hate the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up
with a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a
basic, quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I
should consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into
this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: Stevie Mejia (him again?!) tied a career high with
22 points on 7-of-13 shooting, the career-best fifth straight game in which he
shot at least 46 percent from the field. Stephen Nwaukoni pulled down 12
rebounds in a gritty, gutty effort, at least until he suffered a season-ending
shoulder injury in the final minute. Taran Buie stirred a bit by scoring 13
points on 3-of-9 shooting from the field and 5-of-9 from the line. The free
throw attempts were his most of the conference season. After a brutal shooting
performance in the first half (5-of-19), the Dutchmen shot 50 percent in the
second half (11-of-22) and briefly cut the deficit to five points.
THE BAD: A team that has absorbed blow after blow, from a
personnel standpoint, finally took the knockout punch when Nwaukoni crumpled to
the ground after getting tied up with Darryl McCoy. Nwaukoni, who was banged up
twice earlier in the game, was in such pain from his separated shoulder that he
couldn’t even walk off the court upright. He underwent surgery last week and is
expected to need up to seven months of rehab. Nwaukoni seemed to turn the
corner in his development in February, when he averaged 6.0 ppg and 9.0 rpg in
six games. A healthy Nwaukoni and a maturing Moussa Kone provide the Dutchmen
with a sneaky good frontcourt as well as the only thing resembling a foundation
heading into next year, so Mo Cassara can only hope Nwaukoni is 100 percent by
the opener.
Everything else paled in comparison to Nwaukoni’s injury,
but the Dutchmen never led again after surrendering an 8-0 run late in the
first half. Before that, the two teams played 12 minutes of basketball so
unsightly from an offensive perspective that James Naismith, tuning into NBC
Sports Network from the great beyond, may have regretted ever inventing the
game. Hofstra and Drexel combined for 15 points on their first 34 possessions.
The Dragons didn’t break double digits until Damion Lee’s jumper with 7:48 left
and the Dutchmen didn’t get to that magic figure until Mejia’s 3-pointer with 5:38
left. The Dutchmen opened the game by committing turnovers on their first three
possessions and on nine of their first 19 overall.
THE QUIRKY: This is the bad quirky, not the good quirky: Nwaukoni
became the second Hofstra junior big man in as many years to suffer a
season-ending injury at Drexel. David Imes missed the final five games of his junior
year after he suffered a hip injury in the first half last Feb. 11. Not kidding
at all when I suggest Kone skip the trip to Philadelphia next year.
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I
hate the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up
with a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a
basic, quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I
should consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into
this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: Stevie Mejia (yup, him again) had another impressive
game as he led the Dutchmen with 13 points, four assists and an incredible
seven steals. (Only one rebound though—c’mon Stevie) Moussa Kone was solid off
the bench with 11 points (on 5-of-10 shooting) and five rebounds in 25 minutes.
It was only the second time since Kone lost his starting job Jan. 1 that he
played as many as 25 minutes in a game. The Dutchmen recovered from a slow start—they
were down 14-4 eight minutes in—by forcing Towson to play their sludgy style of
ball. Hofstra outscored Towson 25-9 over the next 15-plus minutes to open up a
six-point lead. Kone scored six points in the final minutes of the first half
while David Imes scored six unanswered points as Hofstra opened the second half
with a 10-2 run. Jordan Allen (nine points), Imes (eight points) and Stephen
Nwaukoni (seven points) provided balance behind Mejia and Kone. The Dutchmen
racked up 15 steals, their most since they had 17 steals against Georgia State
on Jan. 5, 2006.
THE BAD: This isn’t your grandfather’s Towson, as the Tigers
proved in needing less than 10 minutes to turn that six-point deficit into an
11-point lead. Towson scored as many points in its 23-6 run as it did in the
first 24 minutes combined. Towson big men Jerrelle Benimon, Marcus Damas and
Bilal Dixon were limited to a manageable 36 points and 21 rebounds, but they
were a combined 13-of-18 from the field. Taran Buie bottomed out by missing all
11 of his shots, the worst shooting performance by a Dutchmen player in the CAA
era. Outside of Mejia and Kone, the Dutchmen shot just 10-of-34 from the field,
including 1-of-8 from 3-point land. The Dutchmen left plenty of points on the
floor as they went just 8-of-17 from the free throw line and converted their 15
steals into just 15 points. Mejia committed six turnovers for the second
straight game. And while the Dutchmen only lost by seven, they never really
threatened Towson over the final 10 minutes, a stretch in which they got as
close as five points just once.
THE QUIRKY: Mejia became the second Hofstra player in seven
days to record seven steals in a game, which was a figure nobody had reached in
the 287 games before Allen had seven steals against UNCW. Towson won at Hofstra
for the first time since 2001-02 and only the second time since the two teams
reconnected in the North Atlantic Conference in 1995-96.
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I
hate the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up
with a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a
basic, quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I should
consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into this trap
again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: Umm, well, other than Stevie Mejia tying a
career high with four 3-pointers, recording his first career double-double and
leading Hofstra in four statistical categories (18 points, 10 rebounds, two
assists, two steals—c’mon Stevie, no blocks?), not much. Mejia’s feat is
something even Charles Jenkins never did, but it came on an otherwise brutal
night for the Dutchmen in Atlanta. Mejia was the only Hofstra player to score
in double figures. In fact, only Jordan Allen (six points) had more than five
points—hey wait a minute, this is trending into the bad, isn’t it? Well, Stephen
Nwaukoni had eight rebounds and five points, all from the line. Matt Grogan got
fouled on a 3-pointer and sank all three free throws. And the Dutchmen mounted
a 10-0 run over a span of 3:01 early in the first half to take a 10-4 lead. And
then…
THE BAD: …it all fell apart. Following a timeout, in which I
can only imagine Ron Hunter calmly implored Georgia State to play better, the
Panthers went on a 16-0 run that was ended by a Mejia 3-pointer (of course).
The Dutchmen got within nine at halftime thanks to a buzzer-beating 3-pointer
by Mejia (of course) but moved no closer in the second half. If not for
Mejia—who probably should have earned all six points in the 3 Stars Of the
Game—Hofstra might have struggled to break 30 points. He was 5-of-10 shooting
while the rest of his teammates were a combined 7-of-31. Only Allen and David
Imes had multiple field goals. Nwaukoni attempted just one field goal. The
Dutchmen committed 22 turnovers, their most in CAA play this year. And…well,
you get the picture. It was a long shot the Dutchmen would sweep the season
series and this one was never in doubt after the Panthers’ game-breaking run.
THE QUIRKY: The Dutchmen finished 12-of-41 from the field, which wasn’t good, but it wasn’t even their worst outing of the
season (11-of-48 against George Mason). Oof.
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I
hate the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up
with a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a
basic, quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I
should consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into
this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: HOFSTRA WON ON THE ROAD! HOFSTRA WON ON THE ROAD!
Not only that, but the Dutchmen ended their epic 18-game, 12-month road/neutral
site losing streak by storming back from a 12-point second half deficit, their
biggest comeback of the post-Jenkins era. The Dutchmen outscored UNCW 44-23
after the Seahawks’ first basket of the second half and ended the game on a
20-10 run over the final 8:30.
Stevie Mejia had 18 points and three
3-pointers, the first two of which tied the game and the last of which extended
the Dutchmen’s lead to six points during the game-ending run. Stephen Nwaukoni
had his second straight double-double with 12 points (albeit on 3-of-9 shooting)
and 10 rebounds. David Imes (eight points, nine rebounds) flirted with a
double-double. Taran Buie struggled again from the field (3-of-9), but drained
the back-breaking 3-pointer with 2:24 left to put the Dutchmen up nine.
The
most impressive individual performance, though, belonged to Jordan Allen, who
was 3-of-3 from the field and recorded a mind-boggling seven steals in just 22
minutes (he fouled out). Allen finished one steal shy of the school record
(eight by Frank Walker and Speedy Claxton) and recorded the most steals by a
Hofstra player since Kenny Adeleke (AHHH!! NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS WHEN CURRENT
PLAYERS MATCH OR APPROACH ADELEKE’S FEATS!) on Feb. 4, 2004.
THE BAD: Well, there was that time the Dutchmen trailed by
10 at the half and 12 early in the second half, but they won a friggin’ road
game, lets not be picky. Also, everyone in the traveling party got to miss our
blizzard.
THE QUIRKY: The Dutchmen snapped their road losing streak at
UNCW exactly three weeks after the Seahawks snapped THEIR 16-game, one-year
road losing streak by beating Hofstra, 57-51, in Hempstead. And while the
Dutchmen didn’t have quite the travel adventure that UNCW did when it traveled
to and from Long Island on the same day thanks to bad weather along the east
coast, the Dutchmen did leave a day earlier to beat the snow. Moral of the
story: Messed-up travel plans lead to wins.
Can't find Extreme's "Waiting For The Punchline"--the hidden last song on the album of the same name--on YouTube, so you get the Defiantly Dutch anthem instead!
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I
hate the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up
with a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a
basic, quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to
call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty self-explanatory, and probably something I
should consider employing from the start next year so that I don’t fall into
this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: The Flying Dutchmen lost to Northeastern, the
wire-to-wire regular season leader, by five points for the second time in 21
days. But unlike in Boston, where Northeastern led the entire time, the
Dutchmen had the Huskies reeling for a 20-minute stretch spanning the halves in
which Hofstra outscored Northeastern 39-21 to turn an eight-point deficit into
a 10-point lead with 10:12 to play.
The rally was fueled by of all people, walk-on point guard
Adam Savion, who played a career-high 24 minutes. He entered with 11:20 left in
the first and the Dutchmen down 11-3. With Savion manning the point, the
Dutchmen finished the half on a 21-8 run. Overall, the Dutchmen outscored
Northeastern 42-31 with Savion on the floor. Those numbers are a bit
misleading—he played almost 11 consecutive minutes in the second half, during
which time the Dutchmen came back from a one-point deficit, built their
10-point lead and then fell behind by two points—but there’s no denying the
spark he provided with Stevie Mejia in foul trouble and Taran Buie once again
misfiring at will.
The Dutchmen also got unexpected contributions from reserve
big men Daquan Brown and Moussa Kone, who were each 3-of-3 from the field. Kone
added five rebounds. Stephen Nwaukoni had another big game with 11 points and a
career-high tying 13 rebounds. Mejia had 11 points (on 4-of-5 shooting), three
assists and two steals.
THE BAD: Well, there was that whole blowing a 10-point lead
to the eventual regular season champion thingie. Mejia played a season-low 22
minutes because of his foul trouble. David Imes had eight points, eight
rebounds and four assists but was just 2-of-9 from the field. The Dutchmen shot
a wretched 11-of-22 from the free throw line and missed the front end of a
one-and-one three times in the second half. Buie was just 4-of-18 from the
field and had a potential game-tying 3-pointer blocked by Quincy Ford with two
seconds left.
THE QUIRKY: Only the 2012-13 Dutchmen could wonder what-if
about two buzzer-beater desperation heaves that barely missed. Imes’ shot
from the opposite foul line rimmed in and out as the first half buzzer sounded
while Buie’s meaningless chuck at the end of the game actually got wedged in
between the backboard and the rim. Seriously. Only Hofstra, only this year. Oh,
and Mejia displayed some amusing senior leadership when he went up to
Northeastern sophomore Danny Walker before each of his free throw attempts with
1:20 left and the Huskies up four. Walker missed both. (Well, it was amusing to
me, anyway)
(Note: I have been terribly derelict about posting game
recaps this season, partially because I’ve been busy with work and fatherhood
but mostly because this season has been devastatingly depressing. However, I hate
the idea of not properly archiving these games, so to speak, so I came up with
a compromise that will allow me to chronicle #HofstraPun the season in a basic,
quick-hit fashion. So welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Quirky. Or, as I like to call it, TGTBATQ. Pretty
self-explanatory, and probably something I should consider employing from the
start next year so that I don’t fall into this trap again. Enjoy!)
THE GOOD: David Imes began his final month of regular season
play in impressive fashion with a team-high 16 points (on 7-of-12 shooting) and
seven rebounds. (Not that I’m psychic or anything, but it’s a sign of things to
come) Stevie Mejia had 11 points, four rebounds, four assists and no turnovers,
the first (and thus far only) time all season he had an infinite
assist-to-turnover ration. Stephen Nwaukoni sat for the first 27 minutes
because of a coach’s decision but racked up 10 points (on 4-of-5 shooting) and
seven rebounds the rest of the way.
THE BAD: Mejia was just 3-of-14 from the floor. Taran Buie
(3-of-18) was even worse as his epic shooting slump deepened (yeah, that was a
sign of things to come too). Hard to win in a guard-heavy league when your
starters are 6-of-32 from the field. Outside of Imes, Nwaukoni and Jordan Allen
(2-of-2 shooting), the Dutchmen were an ice-cold 8-of-40 shooting. Ironically,
in that it’s not ironic at all, this happened on Groundhog Day. The Dutchmen
trailed by at least nine points for the final 34 minutes. And William &
Mary star Tim “Beasthoven” Rusthoven ate the Dutchmen up to the tune of 17
points and 16 rebounds. #BEASTHOVEN indeed.
THE QUIRKY: Jody Card, the Iraq veteran who joined the
Dutchmen after the morons were kicked off the team, made his season debut by
playing in the final minute. He became the 27th walk-on to play for
Hofstra this season (I may be exaggerating a tad). Allen became the first
Hofstra player to foul out since he fouled out against Delaware on Jan. 9, a
span of six games. William & Mary beat the Dutchmen 72-59 a mere 21 days
after Hofstra beat the Fighting Bill Lawrences 70-59. Sure, it sounds
meaningless, but you wouldn’t be saying that if the CAA would only use the
CBA’s old tiebreaker rules! (That one is for @NUHF)
