I'll Be Quirky: Fairleigh Dickinson

The designated hitter: Not as bad as an automatic runner at second base, but still not real baseball.

Two hundred and sixty-three days and one drastically changed world later, the defending CAA champion Flying Dutchmen (that does sound good) played basketball again Sunday, when they opened the 2020-21 (?) season with a 70-56 loss to Rutgers. Because this is the 2020-21 season, the Dutchmen are scheduled to play again tonight, when they may or may not host Fairleigh Dickinson. Here’s a look back at the loss to the Scarlet Knights and a look ahead to *takes off glasses, peers closely at the screen* the Knights?

THE MOST RECENT GAME SUMMARIZED IN ONE PARAGRAPH

The Dutchmen endured 15 ice-cold minutes from the field to end the first half as Rutgers led wire-to-wire in the long-awaited matchup of teams who were primed to make long-awaited trips to the NCAA Tournament in March. Jalen Ray scored a game-high 22 points and drained a 3-pointer to tie the game at 10-10 exactly five minutes in, but the Dutchmen were just 4-of-25 from the field the rest of the half as Rutgers went on 22-11 run. The Dutchmen missed 12 straight shots at one point. Rutgers opened the second half on an 13-2 run before the Dutchmen puled within 10 points three times. Isaac Kante pulled down a career-high 17 rebounds and added seven points and two steals. Redshirt freshman Kvonn Cramer had eight points, four rebounds and three steals in his debut. 

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Rutgers 11/29)

3: Jalen Ray

2: Isaac Kante

1: Kvonn Cramer

SEASON STANDINGS (duh)

Jalen Ray 3

Isaac Kante 2

Kvonn Cramer 1

COACHSPEAK: “We battled. We just couldn’t make any shots. We couldn’t throw it in the ocean. There was a couple of time in the second half I thought we were a play away from making it real interesting.”—acting head coach Mike Farrelly

THE FLYING DUTCHMEN AFTER ONE GAME

As you may have gathered by now, the Dutchmen are 0-1. This ties the 2020-21 team for the 49th-best record through one game. Thirty-six other teams began 0-1, most recently last year’s squad. Things turned out OK after that. Here is how some notable Hofstra teams have fared through one game.

NCAA TOURNAMENT TEAMS

1975-76: 1-0

1976-77: 1-0

1999-2000: 0-1

2000-01: 0-1

2019-20 (IT COUNTS TO US): 0-1

NIT TEAMS

2005-06: 1-0

2006-07: 0-1

2015-16: 1-0

2018-19: 1-0

NCAA DIVISION II TOURNAMENT TEAMS

1958-59: 0-1

1961-62: 1-0

1962-63: 1-0

1963-64: 1-0

Some other notable, uhh, one-game starts:

2013-14: Joe Mihalich loses his debut

2010-11: Mo Cassara wins his debut

2001-02: Tom Pecora wins his debut

1994-95: Jay Wright loses his debut, retires in shame

1988-89: Butch van Breda Kolff wins his re-debut

1980-81: Dick Berg wins his debut

1979-80: Joe Harrington loses his debut

1972-73: Roger Gaeckler loses his debut

1962-63: Paul Lynner wins his debut

1955-56: Butch van Breda Kolff wins his debut

1947-48: Frank Reilly wins his debut

1946-47: Jack McDonald wins his re-debut

1943-44: Jack Smith loses his debut

1936-37: Jack McDonald loses his debut in Hofstra’s first game

This feature is inspired by Mets superfan and blogger Greg Prince, who measures how the current Mets compare, record-wise, to previous teams through the same point in the season.

FOR STARTERS

And as you may also have gathered by now, the Dutchmen have lost two straight season openers. It’s the first time the Dutchmen have dropped back-to-back openers since they lost in 2012-13 and 2013-14. The Dutchmen are now 48-37 all-time in season openers. Joe Mihalich-coached teams are 13-10 in season openers (5-3 at Hofstra, 8-7 at Niagara).

IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

The Dutchmen played Rutgers 263 days after the CAA title game win over Northeastern, which means that god-awful off-season lasted 263 days. That was the longest off-season since following the 2001-02 season, when the Dutchmen also went 263 days between their semifinal loss to VCU in the CAA Tournament and the season opener against Gonzaga. 

In addition, the Nov. 29 season debut marks the latest the Dutchmen have begun play since the 1992-93 season, when they fell to Manhattan, 80-56, on Dec. 1.

THE FRESHMAN TRIO

Three freshmen made their debuts for the Flying Dutchmen on Sunday afternoon, including redshirt Kvonn Cramer, who came off the bench to score eight points and record four rebounds and three steals. Cramer is the first freshman to score in his debut since Jalen Ray in 2017 and his eight points are the most off the bench by a freshman in his debut since Eli Pemberton scored 20 points in 2016. David Green made the start at forward and was scoreless in 16 minutes, as was Vukasin Masic in five minutes off the bench. Here are some notable debuts by Hofstra freshmen in the CAA era (2001-present):

2017: Jalen Ray: 10 pts/2 assists vs. Army-West Point

2017: Matija Radovic: 5 pts/5 rebs vs. Army-West Point

2016: Eli Pemberton: 20 pts/4 rebs/1 steal vs. Coppin State

2015: Justin Wright-Foreman: 0 pts/1 reb vs. Canisius

2015: Desure Buie: 2 pts/2 assists/1 steal vs. Canisius

2014: Rokas Gustys: 4 pts/10 rebs vs. Jacksonville

2014: Andre Walker: 4 pts/11 rebs/6 blks vs. Jacksonville

2013: Chris Jenkins: 17 pts/2 rebs/1 blk/1 steal vs. Monmouth

2013: Jamall Robinson: 8 pts/4 rebs/2 assists vs. Monmouth

2012: Jordan Allen: 2 pts/1 reb vs. Monmouth

2011: Moussa Kone: 6 pts/2 rebs/1 steal vs. Long Island U.

2010: Shemiye McLendon: 16 pts/4 rbs/2 assists vs. Farmingdale State

2010: Stephen Nwaukoni: 8 rebs vs. Farmingdale State

2010: Roland Brown: 4 pts/5 rebs/1 steal/1 blk  vs. Farmingdale State

2009: Chaz Williams: 7 pts/6 assists/5 rebs/37 mins vs. Kansas

2009: Halil Kanacevic: 12 pts/12 rebs/3 blks 31 mins vs. Kansas

2007: Charles Jenkins: 5 pts/9 rebs/1 assist/1 steal vs. Holy Cross

2007: Nathaniel Lester: 2 rebs vs. Holy Cross

2007: Greg Washington: 2 rebs/2 blks/1 assist/1 steal vs. Holy Cross

2005: Arminas Urbutis: 6 pts vs. Florida International

2005: Greg Johnson: 12 pts vs. Florida International

2004: Antoine Agudio: 20 pts vs. Florida International 

2003: Loren Stokes: 2 pts vs. Marist

2003: Carlos Rivera: 10 pts vs. Marist

2001: Kenny Adeleke: 10 pts vs. Florida Atlantic

There were no freshmen on the 2008-09 team.

FRESHMAN INTO THE FIRE

David Green became the first freshman to start a season opener for the Dutchmen since Jalen Ray in 2017. Green is just the third freshman to start his collegiate debut for Hofstra in the Joe Mihalich Era, following in the footsteps of Ray and Jamall Robinson (2013).

SCORELESS STARTERS

David Green (0-for-5 from the field) and Caleb Burgess (0-for-4 from the field) were each scoreless as starters Sunday afternoon. It was the first time the Dutchmen have had two starters go scoreless since Jan. 7, 2018, when Kenny Wormley (12 minutes) and Joel Angus II (nine minutes) did not score.

TWO NEW FACES

The start was also the first of his career for Burgess, which made Sunday the first time since Joe Mihalich’s debut in 2013 that at least two players were making their first starts in a season opener. Graduate transfers Zeke Upshaw and Dion Nesmith started in Mihalich’s debut, as did freshman Jamall Robinson.

COMPLETING THE TRANSFER

Junior college transfer Shawndarius Cowart made his debut Sunday afternoon, when he scored two points on a pair of free throws, had two steals and recorded two assists in 12 minutes off the bench. Here are some notable debuts by transfers since 1991: 

2019: Isaac Kante: 8 pts/11 rebs vs. San Jose State

2018: Jacquil Taylor: 6 pts/10 rebs vs. Mount St. Mary’s

2018: Dan Dwyer: 3 pts/6 rebs/2 blks vs. Mount St. Mary’s

2018: Tareq Coburn: 2 pts/2 rebs vs. Mount St. Mary’s

2017: Joel Angus III: 13 pts/6 rebs vs. Army-West Point

2017: Kenny Wormley: 3 pts/2 rebs/4 assists vs. Kennesaw State

2016: Deron Powers: 12 pts/5 assists/4 rebs vs. Coppin State

2016: Hunter Sabety: 2 pts/5 rebs/1 blk vs. Coppin State

2015: Denton Koon: 14 pts/5 rebs/1 steal/1 blk vs. Canisius

2014: Juan’ya Green: 14 pts/9 assists/5 rebs vs. Jacksonville

2014: Ameen Tanksley: 16 pts/3 assists/2 assists/1 blk vs. Jacksonville

2014: Brian Bernardi: 22 pts/3 assists/2 rebs/1 steal vs. Jacksonville (6-8 3PT)

2014: Malik Nichols: 15 pts/3 assists/2 rbs/1 blk vs. Jacksonville**

2013: Zeke Upshaw: 22 pts/3 assists/3 rebs vs. Monmouth (2-8 3PT)

2013: Dion Nesmith: 10 pts/5 assists/2 rebs vs. Monmouth

2012: Taran Buie: 14 pts/2 assists/2 rbs vs. South Dakota State

2012: [name redacted]: 12 pts vs. Monmouth

2012: Daquan Brown: 2 pts/1 assist vs. Tulane

2011: Stevie Mejia: 7 pts/1 rb/4 assists/1 steal vs. Long Island

2011: Bryant Crowder: 13 pts/6 rbs/1 steal vs. Rhode Island**

2010: Mike Moore: 13 pts/4 rbs/4 assists vs. Farmingdale State

2010: Dwan McMillan: 15 pts/2 rbs/6 assists/1 steal vs. Farmingdale State**

2010: Brad Kelleher: 2 pts vs. Florida Atlantic**

2008: Tony Dennison: 5 pts/4 rbs/1 assist vs. Clemson**

2008: Cornelius Vines: 12 pts/3 rbs/3 steals vs. Clemson**

2008: Miklos Szabo: 4 pts/11 rbs/2 assists/1 steal vs. E. Tennessee State**

2007: Darren Townes: 5 pts/5 rbs/1 steal/1 blocked shot vs. Holy Cross**

2007: Dane Johnson: 3 pts/1 rb/3 blocked shots vs. Holy Cross**

2004: Kenny Harris: 3 pts/1 rb/1 assist/2 steals vs. Florida International**

2004: Adrian Uter: 0 pts/2 rbs/1 block vs. Florida International**

2000: Osei Miller: 2 pts/2 rbs vs. Northern Illinois

1999: Greg Springfield: 7 pts/5 rbs/10 blocked shots vs. New Mexico State***

1998: Jason Hernandez: 7 pts/ 2 rbs/1 assist/2 steals vs. Maryland

1998: Abdul Sylla 0 pts/3 rbs vs. Youngstown State

1997: Mike Renfro 6 pts/3 rbs/1 assist/1 steal vs. Bucknell**

1996: Lance Dunkley 2 pts/3 rbs/1 assist vs. Stony Brook**

1996: Duane Posey 8 pts/4 rbs/1 assist/2 blks vs. Stony Brook

1995: Seth Meyers 14 pts/5 rbs vs. Stony Brook

1995: Lawrence Thomas 20 pts/4 rbs/2 assists vs. Villanova

1994: Jamil Greene 1 pt/2 rbs/1 assist vs. New Hampshire**

1993: Chris Johnke 0 pts/5 rbs vs. Iona**

1991: Demetrius Dudley 33 pts/7 rbs vs. Navy

**--junior college transfer

***--10 blocked shots are a school record

TWO BATTLING AT THE ONE

With Desure Buie’s graduation, point guard is vacant for the first time since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth (or the opening weeks of the 2017-18 season, one or the other). Caleb Burgess (28 minutes) and Shawndarius Cowart (12 minutes) split the position Sunday and combined for two points on 0-for-5 shooting from the field. The duo also combined for four steals, five assists and six turnovers.

RAY OF LIGHT

Jalen Ray scored his 900th career point Sunday, and 11 more for good measure. His 911 points leave him 15 shy of surpassing Aurimas Kieza on the CAA-era scoring list.

KAN DO

Isaac Kante recorded a career-high 17 rebounds Sunday, the most rebounds by a Hofstra player since Jacquil Taylor tied his career-high with 17 rebounds against Towson on Feb. 21, 2019. The last Hofstra player to record more than 17 rebounds in a game was Rokas Gustys, who had 21 rebounds against Drexel on Feb. 17, 2018. And as Hofstra SID Stephen Gorchov noted, Sunday marked the second straight game in which Kante set a career-high in rebounds. He had 15 boards against Northeastern in the CAA title game on Mar. 10.

A QUIET HALF

The Dutchmen scored just 21 points in the first half Sunday, their fewest in a first half since they scored 23 against VCU on Nov. 24, 2018 and their fewest in any half since they were limited to 19 points in the second half against St. Bonaventure on Dec. 7, 2019.

DON’T FALL TWO UNDER .500!

The Flying Dutchmen fell under .500 on Sunday for just the third time since the end of the 2016-17 season, when they finished 15-17. So that got me thinking: How many programs have gone that long or longer without falling two games under .500?

The answer: Sixty-nine (nice?), including 60 programs that haven’t been two games under .500 sine prior to their 2016-17 finale and eight others who haven’t been two games under .500 since the end of the ’16-17 season. The latter group includes St. John’s, North Carolina State and Texas.

Among true mid-majors (defined by me as schools outside the Power 6, AAC, A-10, West Coast and Mountain West), Hofstra’s streak is exceeded by just 16 schools and matched by two more. Among the mids that have gone longer without falling two games under .500 than the Dutchmen: Charleston, which hasn’t been two under since the end of the 2014-15 season, Here’s the full list and the date the program was most recently two games under .500:

Louisiana Tech: 2/16/12

New Mexico State: 1/3/15

UAB: 1/17/15

Charleston: end of ’14-15

San Francisco: end of ’14-15

Furman: end of ’14-15

Vermont: 12/8/15

Northern Kentucky: end of ’15-16

UNC Greensboro: end of ’15-16

Loyola Chicago: end of ’15-16

Georgia Southern: 11/22/16

Belmont: 11/25/16

Liberty: 1/3/17

Buffalo: 1/31/17

Murray State: 2/25/17

South Dakota State: 2/18/17

HOFSTRA: end of ’16-17

Hawaii: end of ’16-17

Western Kentucky: end of ’16-17

(Dear Dutchmen: Please win tonight so this stat remains current, thank you in advance)

SEEKING A SPLIT

The Dutchmen lost their season opener for the ninth time this century. They won the second game to get back to .500 five times, most recently last season, when the Dutchmen beat Monmouth, 94-74. The previous victory following a season-opening loss was in 2013-14, when the Dutchmen beat — drum roll please — Fairleigh Dickinson, 80-58, for the first victory of the Joe Mihalich Era.

GET WELL SOON, JOE

With Joe Mihalich on a medical leave of absence since August, associate head coach Mike Farrelly made his head coaching debut Sunday. This marks the first time a Flying Dutchmen head coach has been sidelined since February 1994, when Butch van Breda Kolff was hospitalized and Joe Dunleavy went 1-3 in his place.

Mihalich is 141-92 in seven seasons at Hofstra and 406-295 overall in 22 seasons as a head coach. He is fifth on Hofstra’s all-time win list after vaulting past Jay Wright last season.

OVER THE AIR

Hofstra will provide a video feed (with a FloHoops subscription) and radio feed of today’s game, as well as live stats, at the Pride Productions hub.

FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON AND THE NORTHEAST CONFERENCE

Fairleigh Dickinson, under eighth-year head coach Greg Herenda, is 0-2 this season after falling to Quinnipiac, 84-66, on Wednesday and losing to Rutgers, 96-75, on Friday. That means the Dutchmen are seven points better than Fairleigh Dickinson, so let it be written, so let it be done. The Flying Dutchmen lead the all-time series 17-4, though the Knights won the most recent game on Jan. 5, 2014 with an 86-67 victory in New Jersey. That completed a rare (for those days, anyway) same-season home-and-home series.

Fairleigh Dickinson was picked to finish first in the preseason NEC coaches poll. The Knights had two players, senior guard Jahlil Jenkins and senior forward Elyjah Williams, selected to the preseason all-NEC team. However, FDU lost two more starters on the day of the season opener when guards Devon Dunn and Xzavier Malone-Key opted out.

Sophomore guard Brandon Rush (18.0 ppg) leads four Knights players averaging in double figures through the first two games. Williams is averaging 12.5 ppg, Jenkins is averaging 11.0 ppg and freshman Pier-Olivier Racine is averaging 10.0 ppg while pulling down a team-high 9.0 rebounds per game.

At KenPom.com today, Hofstra is ranked 152nd while Fairleigh Dickinson is ranked 254th. KenPom.com predicts an 81-73 win for the Dutchmen. Per the wise guys in Vegas, for entertainment purposes only, the Dutchmen are 12-point favorites. The Dutchmen are 1-0 against the spread this season after covering Sunday by a point or half a point, depending on your book. Those guys know their stuff.

Hofstra is 113-58 all-time against current Northeast Conference members. This is the Dutchmen’s first game against an NEC foe since Nov. 9, 2018, when they opened the season by beating Mount St. Mary’s, 79-61. 

THINGS YOU CAN SHOUT ON TWITTER IF CALLS GO DO NOT GO HOFSTRA’S WAY

The designated hitter isn’t real baseball bias! (Ron Blomberg, the former Yankees player and the first DH in baseball history, went to Fairleigh Dickinson after his playing days)

Seth Greenberg bias! (The former Virginia Tech coach and current ESPN broadcaster played at and graduated from FDU)

George Martin bias! (The Giants’ Super Bowl-winning defensive end went to FDU after his playing days and graduated in 2018)

You sorta still play football bias! (FDU’s Florham Campus plays Division III football)

It started before we knew it'd begun

Jim Steinman, that maestro of Wagnerian rock, knew what he was writing about when he declared it would be over before we knew it’d begun.

Sometime around 8:45 PM on March 10, I raced up the stairs to use the bathroom during the final media timeout of the CAA championship game. The Flying Dutchmen were up two on Northeastern with 3:54 left, and while I usually defer to Ken Pomeroy on numerical matters such as these, there was no way in hell it felt like the Dutchmen had a 66 percent chance of winning the game and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Indeed, as I did my business and washed up — in a more thorough manner than I might have just a week earlier — I’m pretty sure it felt there was at least a 66 percent chance that the 19-year NCAA Tournament drought would officially reach 20 years in a matter of minutes. I remember looking into the mirror in the bathroom, aware that no supposedly grown-ass man should be as nervous about a sporting event as I was right now, and thinking to myself (or maybe out loud, who knows) that if the Dutchmen could just hang on and win this game, I wouldn’t complain about sports for five years.

I think I added something about how I didn’t want a Hofstra win to come at the expense of HAVING sports for the next five years, which is a weird addendum to make, except, well, stuff was getting weird. But the next few minutes offered the promise of an alternate reality where the stresses were entirely related to a bouncing ball and the only thing that mattered was this basketball game.

All it took was seven minutes to erase 19 years worth of angst, heartbreak and disappointment (but Jim Larranaga is still the devil).

The Dutchmen were teetering before the timeout — Eli Pemberton turned the ball over, Pemberton and Isaac Kante committed fouls and Northeastern’s Bolden Brace and Jason Strong missed potential go-ahead 3-pointers before a turnover by the Huskies’ Guilien Smith stopped the clock — but once play resumed, nothing could stop the Dutchmen and their aim was true.

Desure Buie began a 206-second sequence that cemented him as an all-time Hofstra great by draining a 3-pointer out of the timeout and forcing a turnover as the shot clock expired on Northeastern’s subsequent possession. Jalen Ray drained two free throws before a Tareq Coburn block led to the dagger 3-pointer by Buie. 

The game wasn’t officially over, but the Flying Dutchmen were going back to the big dance. It was all a glorious, out-of-body-experience blur. At some point in these seven magical minutes, a friend of mine captured my guttural catharsis, which I will pay him handsomely to keep under wraps until and unless I warrant a Last Dance-esque documentary. But it went something like this.

The buzzer we’d been waiting to hear for 19 years sounded — Hofstra 70, Northeastern 61, in case you forgot — and the first thing I realized was I was too happy and had too much adrenaline coursing through me to cry. It reminded me of the moments after Molly was born on Sept. 17, 2012. I’m not saying this was as momentous an event (I’m also not NOT saying that), but I remember wondering why the tears I’d expected to shed for months weren’t falling. Then I thanked a nurse for helping our family out, the enormity of the moment cascaded over me and I didn’t stop crying until roughly two days later.

I mention this because a couple minutes after the clock hit triple zeroes, I walked down to the court where a fellow long-time fan motioned for and wrapped me in a bear hug.

“We did it,” he yelled into my ears. “This is for everyone who stuck it out after 2012, who was here for all the bad times.”

“Oh man, you’re gonna make me cry,” I said, at which point I was already crying.

This was the first of many hugs, handshakes and teary-eyed exchanges, none of which stuck out to me as much as one with a member of the men’s basketball staff. His first words weren’t about how they’d just done it, or how great it was to achieve the goal of every mid-major in the land. Nor did either of us speak through happy sobs.

All he said was “So you think we’re gonna play?”

***

Even in the best of times, sports are an escape from reality. But throughout the CAA Tournament, sports were becoming the only avenue by which to free oneself of worries about something called a coronavirus. And even that avenue was growing more narrow, seemingly by the minute.

In the time it took us to drive from Long Island to Washington, D.C. on Saturday morning and afternoon, the NHL began shutting locker rooms to the press, New York State declared a state of emergency and a friend of mine who was planning to travel from the mid-Atlantic to Brooklyn for the Atlantic 10 tournament texted me with the information that Amtrak was beginning to cancel trains. 

On Sunday, one of the friends we met at the Entertainment & Sports Arena came equipped with his own Clorox wipes, which he used to wipe down his seats and his hands anytime he touched anything. The ushers at the arena walked up and down the stairs, wiping down the railings.

Every check of Twitter delivered another dose of increasingly foreboding news. Sure, it’d been that way since the late-night hours of Nov. 8, 2016, but this was a different kind of dread. It got to the point where I just left Twitter on my mentions so I’d miss the latest real world developments, which was like trying to fix an overflowing sink by leaving the room.

What started as a darkly comic joke — Hofstra finally makes it back to the NCAA Tournament but no one can attend it — amongst my fellow CAA friends started to seem quite possible. As the son of a retired stockbroker, I knew it was really bad when I woke up Monday morning to my wife telling me the stock market stopped trading because the market fell so far so fast.

A little before noon on Tuesday, the Ivy League canceled its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. A little after noon, I got an alert from Molly’s school district “…regarding coronavirus information.” And a little bit after that, a friend who was planning to drive down from New Jersey for the championship game said he might have to head to pick up his son from college instead.

His son’s school ended up remaining open for the rest of the week, so he headed to D.C. (And he ended up being the one who recorded my guttural catharsis) But as he texted to me: “I’m almost nervous to come tonight. I’ve got my wife’s (Purel) and I’m not high-fiving anybody. I don’t care if they win by 100.”

When he arrived, we exchanged fist bumps, because handshakes were no longer a thing, and agreed that not only wouldn’t we high-five throughout the game, we wouldn’t hug if the Dutchmen won.

Just as had happened the previous two days, the Hofstra basketball game provided respite from the closing walls of the real world. And it’s been lost in the aftermath of everything that happened thereafter, but the CAA championship game was one HELLUVA game.

The Dutchmen were down 10-3 (NICE FOOTBALL SCORE) and everything was terrible. The Dutchmen went ahead 26-24 and everything was terrific. They were down 30-28 at the half and our stomachs were in our throats. Coburn delivered a back page-worthy dunk to put the Dutchmen up 36-33 fewer than three minutes into the second half and we were surely going dancing.

Maxime Boursiquot, who had nine 3-pointers all season and none since Jan. 4, drained a trey with 9:20 to put Northeastern up 45-41, and I may have thrown Molly’s stuffed snow leopard, which was perched atop my head because that’d been good luck the night before but now it was Snowy’s fault the drought was going to last at least another year.

Snowy’s back in my good graces (not sure if I’m back in his) because of course the drought ended, even if we were pretty sure we were done traveling for a while and wouldn’t attend the NCAA Tournament game(s) in person. But that was OK. The euphoric aftermath, and getting to experience what it was like to win a conference title at an age when it could be appreciated, was enough. I furiously texted my Dad for his T-shirt size and my sister for my nephew’s T-shirt size. Then I bought T-shirts that weren’t the right size for any of us except Molly.

My phone was blowing up with congratulatory texts and Tweets from friends, some of whom could even pick Hofstra out on a map  I thought of what I’d write not only for FloHoops.com but, of course, here, where I’d been waiting 11 seasons to write the OMG WE ARE GOING TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT post. I knew the song I’d link and how it would inspire the headline. All that would have to wait until at least Thursday because we were driving back immediately after the game, but it would be worth the wait, and I’d hopefully do the moment justice.

The floor at the Entertainment & Sports Arena reminded me of a general admission concert, where everyone’s bumping into one another and exchanging high fives and generally having the very best time ever. And there was even a stage and everything, where Joe Mihalich & the Dutchmen received the CAA trophy and their oversized ticket to the NCAA Tournament while players danced and took selfies and eventually doused Mihalich with water.

I’d never been to a concert where I hugged this many people, though. I hugged the friend with whom I’d agreed we wouldn’t exchange hugs. There was a hug with another friend in which neither one of us said anything because we were crying into the other’s shoulders. My wife and I hugged a lot. The tears flowed every time I tried talking about what this meant with friends and members of the athletic staff.

We crowded together for selfies and group photos. We took a picture with the great Corny Vines, who drove with his Mom from Syracuse in the afternoon.

All these people crammed together, laughing and shouting and crying all while sharing a confined space and breathing the same poorly circulated air. It was all so wonderful and instinctual to participate in this celebration and to remain blissfully unaware, or become temporarily and blissfully ignorant, of how outside these walls, the avenues of escapism were continuing to narrow by the second.

***

“So you think we’re gonna play?”

I believed what I said: That there would be an NCAA Tournament, but perhaps a few weeks down the road, after this virus ran its course and was weakened by the warmer weather, which is what everyone hoped would happen because…well, the alternative was too we’d-only-read-about-this-in-history-books bad to ponder.

As great as Wednesday began — we all got home safely and managed to fall asleep before waking up and realizing Hofstra had really won the CAA championship the night before — there wasn’t a minute where it ever felt as if there was an alternative to the alternative.

A little after 2 PM, the Golden State Warriors announced they’d no longer play home games in front of fans. Not even two hours later, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said fans would not be allowed to attend any NCAA Tournament games in the state. Just before 5 PM, NCAA president Mark Emmert announced no fans would be allowed at any tourney games. My Dad texted me “I hope you weren’t planning on going to any March Madness games.”

I should have spent the afternoon writing, but played basketball with Molly instead. I went out to get Newsday, whose back page featured Coburn landing following his thunderous dunk. The front page headline blared CONTAINMENT ZONE. The subhead read “Cuomo to send National Guard to New Rochelle as part of plan to slow virus’ spread.” Beneath that read PLUS: 2 NEW CASES IN NASSAU 3 IN SUFFOLK on one line and HOW TO PREPARE FOR A QUARANTINE on the second line. I still haven’t read the game story.

The Patriot League title game — featuring Boston University head coach Joe Jones, an ex-Hofstra assistant, and broadcast by former Hofstra head coach Mo Cassara — began around 7:30. By the time the Terriers became the 12th team to clinch an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, the Utah Jazz-Oklahoma City Thunder game was postponed because a Jazz player had the coronavirus. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had the coronavirus. By the time the Terriers finished celebrating, the NBA season was suspended.

By mid-morning EST Thursday, the Islanders canceled their morning skate. Shortly before noon, my wife found out her school was going remote. Just after noon, the Atlantic 10 canceled its tournament. St. John’s played half a game before the Big East Tournament was canceled. The rest of the still-active tourneys followed suit. The NHL paused its season a little after 1:30 PM and Major League Baseball suspended spring training less than half an hour later. Duke, Kansas and other major programs suspended activities less than an hour later.

Finally, at 4:31, the band aid was ripped off as the NCAA Tournament was canceled. It was officially over before we knew it’d begun.

Not even half an hour later, the CAA announced one of the officials at the first game of the tournament tested positive for the coronavirus. Molly went to school in her Hofstra championship T-shirt on Thursday and was greeted by Mom and Dad at the bus stop Friday afternoon, because we knew that would be her last day of school. By the weekend, we found out one of the friends with whom we’d celebrated had the coronavirus. He’s thankfully fine and had a mild case, and other than Molly briefly running a fever on March 16, none of us presented symptoms in March.

I’ve written for plenty of non-daily publications in my career, so I’m accustomed to figuring out a way to freshen up old-ish news. But by late Thursday night, everything that had happened about 48 hours earlier was unrecognizable. This wasn’t the time to write about how we felt on top of the world Tuesday night, or to put into context what winning the championship meant to Hofstra and its fans.

And it was most certainly not the time to bemoan how there would be no program- and fanbase-validating trip to the NCAA Tournament. On Selection Sunday, there was little woe-is-me wailing about how we all should have been finding out where the Dutchmen were headed (I didn’t say NO woe-is-me wailing), nor was there much time spent wondering where we’d be watching the Dutchmen on Thursday or Friday.

This wasn’t a time to watch sports. It was a time to understand we were in the midst of the biggest American challenge in decades and that relying on sports to service us by providing our quote unquote escape from reality was not an option.

The absence of sports as spring turned into summer also gave us time to not only pay attention to the spate of police brutality being foisted upon Black men and women but to also listen to their anguish expressed on social media and elsewhere. If we could not understand their pain, or the terror that accompanies every routine traffic stop, we could at least listen and absorb the truth that the past and present state of American race relations we’ve been taught is decidedly different than the reality.

For some people, that meant getting their quote unquote escape from reality interrupted for a few days in August, mere weeks after sports returned not because the pandemic was over but because sports are too big to fail.

And even those of us who were unsure if it was an appropriate time to watch sports lapsed back into watching the games and rooting for our favorite real-life teams or fantasy teams, because guilty pleasures are still guilty pleasures and in the end we’re all Charlie Kelly seated next to a plate of cheese. I really don’t want to admit how frustrated I was to lose a fantasy baseball championship in the last inning of the 60-game season.

The pandemic is not over — and in fact is raging across a rudderless country that will be sans leadership until at least Jan. 20 — but college basketball returned in stop-and-start fashion this week. In another sobering reminder of how far removed we are from the relative normalcy of March 10, the Dutchmen will be coached by Mike Farrelly, who is serving as acting head coach while Mihalich — who locked up a spot in the Hofstra Athletics Hall of Fame and cemented his reputation as one of the best program builders in America with the CAA championship — remains on a medical leave that began in August.

The Flying Dutchmen are scheduled to open their season against Rutgers this afternoon, four days after they were supposed to open their season against Monmouth, at least until that game was postponed seven hours before it was scheduled to start because of a positive coronavirus case within the Hawks’ program. Just getting to an opening tip is a victory in 2020-21.

Proceeding thereafter is also unchartered territory. Winning a long-awaited title changes the rooting dynamic, or at least it should. A championship should lessen the desperation and eliminate our worst Mad Dog Russo reactions to disappointing outcomes. We should be good for a few years now.

Finally winning the CAA without making a trip to the NCAA Tournament shouldn’t change that. As much as the world has changed since March 10, we can’t put that released joy back in the bottle nor replicate the 19 years of buildup that preceded the celebration. We felt what we felt.

Now we wonder how to feel going forward, especially in the midst of a pandemic which has some of us uncertain over whether or not sports should even be taking place. 

I see fellow college basketball fans who share my conflicted feelings getting wrapped up in their alma maters and the sport. And whenever the season starts, I’m pretty sure it won’t take long — maybe a TV timeout or two — to get wrapped up in the Dutchmen.

I’ll hopefully pen stories and I’ll Be Quirkys and enjoy digging deep into the archives to find fun statistical minutiae. If the season gets to January, I’ll look forward to the weekend back-to-backs that are scheduled to comprise the CAA season. If the season gets to March, I’ll be all-in on the Dutchmen trying to win a second straight tournament title, and hopefully make a first straight NCAA Tournament appearance.

But however long this season lasts, it will be impossible not to think about how our understanding of reality in America has changed and how much normalcy was redefined in the 263 days (for now) between the end of one season and the start of another. It’ll be impossible not to juxtapose what transpires this season to our memories of March 10, back when none of us were fully aware of the ending we were watching — nor even remotely aware of what had begun before we even knew it’d started.