The Butch Bowl!!!
The Flying Dutchmen won the only must-win game of the season last Tuesday, when they squandered a nine-point second half lead before coming back to beat SUNY-Stony Brook, 71-63. The lemon tree stays in Hempstead for another year and Joe Mihalich & Co. remain employed! (Of course the latter was going to be true either way, but still, cant hurt to win that game, Joe) The Dutchmen will begin the final weekend of the non-conference season tonight, when they return from exams and visit those eggheads at Princeton. Here’s a look back at the win over the Patriots and a look ahead to the Tigers.
THE MOST RECENT GAME SUMMARIZED IN ONE PARAGRAPH
SUNY-Stony Brook scored 12 unanswered points to take a 57-54 lead with seven minutes left, but the Dutchmen ended the game on a 17-6 run to retain local bragging rights. Phew. Jalen Ray’s 3-pointer with 5:46 left gave the Dutchmen the lead for good and the trio of Desure Buie, Tareq Coburn and Eli Pemberton combined to go 9-for-10 from the free throw line over the final 2:23. The Dutchmen won despite shooting just 22-of-72 from the field. On defense, the Dutchmen employed a rare man-to-man look on defense down the stretch and limited SUNY-Stony Brook to four points on its final 11 possessions. Buie scored a game-high 20 points and collected a game-high six assists. Pemberton (15 points, 10 rebounds) and Coburn (10 points, 12 rebounds) each had double-doubles. Ray was 5-of-9 from 3-point land and finished with 17 points, five rebounds and two steals.
3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. SUNY-Stony Brook 12/10)
3: Desure Buie
2: Jalen Ray
1: Eli Pemberton
SEASON STANDINGS
Desure Buie 21
Eli Pemberton 15
Tareq Coburn 13
Jalen Ray 9
Isaac Kante 7
Omar Silverio 1
COACHSPEAK: “It was a great, great game. Two teams just went tooth-and-nail and toe-to-toe and every other cliche thing you want to talk about. We never caved, they never caved. It was a heckuva game. Just fun to be a part of it.”
THIS IS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF FRIENDS’ FIRST SEASON, WHAT WOULD THIS GAME BE TITLED IF IT WAS AN EPISODE OF FRIENDS?
The One Where #LongIslandsTeam Won Again
DOESN’T A RIVALRY INVOLVE BOTH SIDES WINNING?
With the win last Tuesday, the Dutchmen improved to 23-5 all-time against SUNY-Stony Brook, including 5-1 since the series resumed in 2014. The Dutchmen have won four straight games between the two schools.
In addition, Hofstra is now 24-21-1 in all sports against SUNY-Stony Brook since the two schools began scheduling each other again in the spring of 2014, including 19-10-1 since the 2016-17 school year began. Lastly, and most resoundingly, Hofstra is 107-53-6 all-time in games and matches contested in sports still offered by both schools (good news SUNY-Stony Brook, you don’t have to count all those times Hofstra smoked you in football!).
WAS THIS A UNICORN SCORE?
Once again, unbelievably, yes! We missed a repeat of last year’s 71-64 Hofstra win by a single point But while there have been SEVEN 71-64 wins and three 72-63 wins, there’d never been a 71-63 win until last week. Wild. This is the Dutchmen’s sixth unicorn score of the season. They recorded 10 unicorn scores last season. The term unicorn score was coined by Mets superfan, historian and blogger Greg Prince to describe a score by which the Mets had never previously won.
11/9/19: 94-74 over Monmouth
11/15/19: 111-69 over New York Tech
11/21/19: 88-78 over UCLA
12/1/19: 91-69 over Holy Cross
12/2/19: 64-57 over Canisius
12/10/19: 71-63 over SUNY-Stony Brook
THE FLYING DUTCHMEN AFTER ELEVEN GAMES
With the win over SUNY-Stony Brook, the Dutchmen improved to 7-4. This ties the 2019-20 team for the 23rd-best record through 11 games. Fourteen other teams began 7-4, most recently the 2017-18 squad. The 7-4 record is the most common 11-game record. Here is how some other notable Hofstra teams have fared through 10 games.
NCAA DIVISION I TOURNAMENT TEAMS
1975-76: 5-6
1976-77: 8-3
1999-2000: 7-4
2000-01: 8-3
NIT TEAMS
1998-99: 7-4
2004-05: 10-1 (most recent 10-1 start)
2005-06: 9-2 (most recent 9-2 start)
2006-07: 7-4
2015-16: 7-4
2018-19: 8-3 (marked fifth win in the 16-game winning streak)
NCAA DIVISION II TOURNAMENT TEAMS
1958-59: 7-4
1961-62: 10-1
1962-63: 8-3
1963-64: 10-1
Some other notable 11-game starts:
2013-14: 3-8 (most recent 3-8 start, Joe Mihalich’s first team)
2011-12: 4-7 (most recent 4-7 start)
2007-08: 2-9 (most recent 2-9 start)
2002-03: 1-10 (most recent 1-10 start)
2001-02: 5-6 (Tom Pecora’s first team, most recent 5-6 start, never got back to .500 again)
1994-95: 2-9 (Jay Wright’s first team)
1993-94: 2-9 (VBK’s last team)
1979-80: 5-6 (Joe Harrington’s only season, under .500 for the last time)
1965-66: 6-5 (over .500 for good)
1959-60: 10-1 (Hofstra’s winningest team, percentage-wise)
1955-56: 11-0 (most recent 11-0 start)
1940-41: 6-5 (over .500 for good)
Full records not available for the following seasons: 1936-37, 1941-42, 1942-43m 1945-46, 1954-55
This feature is inspired by Greg Prince, who measures how the current Mets compare, record-wise, to previous teams through the same point in the season.
WINNING WITH SCATTERSHOT SHOOTING
The Dutchmen won last Tuesday despite missing 50 shots (22-of-72) and scoring fewer points than field goal attempts. That’s hard to do! Per fellow Dutchmen fan Evan Jones (@EvanJ3535), Hofstra hadn’t won a game in which it missed at least 50 field goal attempts since Nov. 15, 2008, when the Dutchmen were 20-of-70 shooting in a 71-68 win over Western Michigan. Per CollegeBasketballReference.com, the Dutchmen are just the fifth team this season to win despite missing at least 50 shots from the field.
11/9/19: Wichita State (16-66) in 69-63 win over Texas Southern
11/15/19: Notre Dame (24-76) in 74-64 win over Marshall
11/15/19: South Carolina (31-82) in 90-83 win over Cleveland State
11/21/19: Notre Dame (23-73) in 64-62 OT win over Toledo
12/10/19: Hofstra (22-72) in 71-63 win over SUNY-Stony Brook
Notre Dame did it twice!
DOUBLE THE DOUBLE-DOUBLE FUN
Eli Pemberton (15 points, 10 rebounds) and Tareq Coburn (10 points, 12 rebounds) each recorded a double-double last Tuesday. It’s the first time two Hofstra players have posted double-doubles since Feb. 17, 2018, when Pemberton (16 points, 10 rebounds) and Rokas Gustys (10 points, 17 rebounds) did so in an 88-76 win over Drexel. It was also the first time the Dutchmen had two players record double-doubles, and one wasn’t Gustys, since Dec. 10, 2014, when Juan’ya Green (17 points, 10 rebounds) and Malik Nichols (10 points, 15 rebounds) did so in a 105-64 win over Coppin State.
SO WHO HAS A DOUBLE-DIGIT SCORING STREAK NOW?
Justin Wright-Foreman, as you may or may not recall, ended his Hofstra career by scoring in double figures in each of his last 88 games. The longest such streak now belongs to Desure Buie, who has scored at least 10 points in seven straight games.
JOE HAS THE WRIGHT STUFF
The win over SUNY-Stony Brook was the 122nd victory at Hofstra for Joe Mihalich, which ties him for fifth place on the school’s all-time list with Jay Wright. Whatever happened to that guy, anyway?
THE WRIGHT STUFF 25 YEARS AGO
Speaking of that Jay Wright guy, he began his head coaching career 25 years ago this fall and winter. The Flying Dutchmen, who were really the Flying Dutchmen back then, went into the holiday break on a four-game losing streak on Dec. 18, 1994 with an 80-70 loss to Dartmouth at the Physical Fitness Center. The 1994-95 Dutchmen entered the holidays 1-5 and 0-2 in the North Atlantic Conference.
THE VBK BOWL
Hofstra visits Princeton tonight in the first game between the schools in 28 years. In compiling the game notes for tonight, Hofstra SID Stephen Gorchov discovered the stat of the year. Hofstra’s head coach for the first game of the series, in 1955-56, and the most recent game was the same person — Princeton graduate and future and former Tigers head coach Butch van Breda Kolff! How great is that?
PRINCETON AND THE IVY LEAGUE
Princeton, under ninth-year head coach Mitch Henderson, is 3-7 this season but has won two straight, including a 90-86 overtime victory over Iona at Barclays Center (i.e. Not Nassau) on Tuesday afternoon. Five of the losses have been by 10 points or fewer. The Tigers have played four teams that were in the KenPom top 100 as of today.
Princeton was picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League this season. Sophomore guard Jaelin Llewellyn leads the Tigers with 15.3 points and 3.1 assists per game while senior center Richmond Aririguzoh is collecting a team-high 8.7 rebounds per game while averaging 14.8 points per game. Junior Ryan Schwieger is averaging 10.8 points per game.
The Dutchmen and Tigers have three common foes this season. Bucknell beat Hofstra, 86-71, on Nov. 13 and fell to Princeton, 87-77 on Nov. 30. Monmouth lost to Hofstra, 94-74, on Nov. 9 and beat Princeton, 67-66, on Dec. 10. Drexel, who Hofstra is scheduled to face twice in CAA play Hofstra fell to Bucknell, 86-71, beat Princeton, 82-76, on Dec. 4.
Hofstra is 2-3 all-time against Princeton. As noted earlier, the two schools haven’t played in more than 28 years — since Dec. 6, 1991, when the Tigers beat the Dutchmen, 54-42, at the Dr Pepper Classic at Baylor University. That’s right. Two schools located about 75 miles apart had to go to Texas to play each other.
Hofstra is 29-17 all-time against Ivy League schools. Tonight marks the Dutchmen’s first second game this decade against an Ivy League foe since Nov. 29, 2016, when they edged Columbia, 88-86.
At KenPom.com this morning, Hofstra is ranked 149th while Princeton is ranked 198th. KenPom.com predicts a 75-74 loss for the Dutchmen. Per the wise guys in Vegas, for entertainment purposes only, the Dutchmen are 2-point favorites. The Dutchmen are 6-4 against the spread this season.
THINGS YOU CAN SHOUT ON TWITTER IF CALLS GO DO NOT GO HOFSTRA’S WAY
VBK bias! (It works both ways!)
James Madison bias! (The fourth President went to Princeton, how great would it be if Hofstra was playing James Madison in the next game, alas)
You should have been the first 16 over a 1 bias! (Princeton had Georgetown dead to rights with the ball last in a 50-49 loss in 1989)
Bill Bradley bias! (The former Knicks star, three-term Senator from New Jersey and 2000 presidential candidate played under van Breda Kolff at Princeton)
Nerd bias! (They’re definitely smarter than us)
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