This is as good as it gets right here.
Omar Silverio had the best game of his career Saturday afternoon, when he drained a school record-tying eight 3-pointers and scored 28 points as the Flying Dutchmen never trailed in beating Detroit Mercy, 98-84, to author the first winning streak of the Speedy Claxton era. The Dutchmen will look to make it three straight tonight when Princeton visits in what all the cool kids (or at least me) are calling the VBK Classic. Here’s a look back at the win over Detroit Mercy and a look ahead to the Tigers.
THE MOST RECENT GAME SUMMARIZED IN ONE PARAGRAPH
Omar Silverio put on perhaps the most impressive 3-point shooting display in program history as the Dutchmen scored the game’s first seven points and were never seriously threatened thereafter by Detroit Mercy. Silverio scored 22 points in the first half — shattering his previous single-game high of 17 points — and drained his first seven 3-point attempts on his way to finishing 8-for-10 from beyond the arc, tying Brian Bernardi and Jalen Ray for the most made 3-pointers in a single game. Zach Cooks made a bit of neat history himself by finishing with 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and five steals while Aaron Estrada (16 points, nine assists) just missed posting the double-double. Jalen Ray (15 points) and Darlinstone Dubar (10 points) also got into double digits.
3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Detroit Mercy, 11/27)
3: Omar Silverio
2: Zach Cooks
1: Aaron Estrada
SEASON STANDINGS
Darlinstone Dubar 10
Zach Cooks 9
Jalen Ray 9
Aaron Estrada 6
Kvonn Cramer 4
Omar Silverio 3
Abayomi Iyiola 1
WAS THIS A UNICORN SCORE?
Yes! And in the type of funky quirky thing we love around here, the games in which the Dutchmen previously came closest to a 98-84 victory were almost all wins over Wagner. The Dutchmen beat Wagner 98-83 during the 1965-66 season, 98-81 during the 1968-69 season, 98-85 during the 1975-76 season and 99-83 during the 1976-77 season. For good measure, they also beat St. Francis (NY), a future Northeast Conference rival of Wagner’s, 99-86 during the 1965-66 season.
This is the second straight unicorn score victories for the Dutchmen as well as (checks notes) their second of the season. The Dutchmen recorded no unicorn scores last season after recording 13 unicorn scores in 2019-20 and 10 unicorn scores in 2018-19. 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.
11/24/21: 87-49 over Molloy
11/27/21: 98-84 over Detroit Mercy
THE FLYING DUTCHMEN AFTER SEVEN GAMES
With Saturday’s win, the Dutchmen improved to 3-4, which is tied for the 50th-best start in franchise history…or, if you’re a negative Nellie, tied for the 17th-worst start in program history! Nineteen other teams began 3-4, most recently the 2012-13 squad, which, well, yeah. Here is how some notable Hofstra teams have fared through seven games.
NCAA TOURNAMENT TEAMS
1975-76: 3-4
1976-77: 6-1
1999-2000: 3-4
2000-01: 5-2
2019-20 (IT COUNTS TO US): 4-3
NIT TEAMS
1998-99: 3-4
2004-05: 7-0 (most recent 7-0 start)
2005-06: 5-2
2006-07: 4-3 (over .500 for good)
2015-16: 5-2 (most recent 5-2 start)
2018-19: 4-3 (marked first win in the 16-game winning streak)
NCAA DIVISION II TOURNAMENT TEAMS
1958-59: 4-3
1961-62: 6-1
1962-63: 5-2
1963-64: 6-1
Some other notable seven-game starts:
2020-21: 4-3 (most recent 4-3 start)
2013-14: 2-5 (most recent 2-5 start)
2012-13: 3-4 (under .500 for good because…well, you know)
2011-12: 3-4 (under .500 for good)
2008-09: 6-1 (most recent 6-1 start)
2002-03: 1-6 (most recent 1-6 start)
1994-95: 2-5 (Jay Wright’s first team)
1993-94: 1-6 (VBK’s last team)
1982-83: 6-1 (first loss in 7th game)
1978-79: 3-4 (under .500 for good)
1973-74: 1-6 (win snapped the most recent season-opening six-game losing streak, the Dutchmen have never begun 0-7)
1960-61: 7-0
1959-60: 7-0
1955-56: 7-0
1954-55: 7-0
1951-52: 7-0
1947-48: 7-0
1943-44: 3-4 (under .500 for good)
Full records not available for the following seasons: 1936-37, 1941-42, 1942-43, 1948-49, 1951-52, 1954-55, 1957-58.
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.
SPEEDY THROUGH SEVEN
With Saturday’s win, Speedy Claxton improved to 3-4 as head coach. He is the fourth coach to open 3-4 at Hofstra, which comes with a bit of an asterisk as the previous coach to start 3-4 in his “debut” season was Butch van Breda Kolff, who directed the Dutchmen to a 3-4 record in the first seven games of the first season of his second stint as head coach in 1988-89. Jack McDonald (in Hofstra’s first season of basketball competition in 1936-37) and Jack Smith (1943-44) also started 3-4.
WIRE-TO-WIRE WIN
The Dutchmen never trailed Saturday. It was their first wire-to-wire win since a 68-67 nail-biter over Delaware on Jan. 17.
SHARP-SHOOTING SILVERIO
Where to begin with Omar Silverio’s big game? Well, we can almost surely safely declare his seven straight 3-pointers to open the game are the most without a miss in school history. A player has hit at least seven 3-pointers in a game just 17 times and in none of the previous 14 instances did the player drain his first seven attempts. Tareq Coburn came closest on Feb. 7, 2019, when he hit seven of his first eight 3-point attempts. (I don’t have the play-by-play data for Frank Walker and Jason Hernandez, who became the first and second players in school history to hit seven 3-pointers in a game on Dec. 10, 1987 and Jan. 28, 2000, respectively)
BIG OFF THE BENCH
Silverio’s 28 points off the bench were the most by a Hofstra reserve since Justin Wright-Foreman scored 30 points in an 88-82 win over Rider on Dec. 9, 2017. That was the last game Wright-Foreman didn’t start for the Dutchmen. Eli Pemberton also had 28 points off the bench that game, which has me thinking it wasn’t just a strategy thing by Joe Mihalich. Wright-Foreman also had 25 points off the bench in a 62-54 loss to James Madison on Jan. 5, 2017 and 30 points in the 95-93 overtime loss to William & Mary three days earlier (in a game better known as Daniel Dixon Did It To Us Against II: Electric Boogaloo).
SILVERIO > SPEEDY
OK, not quite, but this is one of the great how has college basketball changed in a generation stats. The eight 3-pointers by Silverio Saturday were as many as Claxton had in his first 58 games combined as a freshman and sophomore. Really! People just didn’t shoot threes back then. Claxton was 8-for-49 from beyond the arc in his first two years and just 14-for-68 in his first three years before going 51-for-134 as a senior.
FUN WITH NUMBERS, THE 3-POINT RECORD EDITION
Along those lines…while the 3-pointer has become omnipresent in college basketball, Saturday marked just the ninth time since 2000 the single-game school record has been matched or broken. Frank Walker, the first Hofstra player to drain seven 3-pointers in a game on Dec. 10, 1987, held sole possession of the record for 355 games until Jason Hernandez tied it against Northeastern on Jan 28, 2000. Hernandez and Walker shared the record for another 317 games until Cornelius Vines hit seven 3-pointers against UNC Wilmington on Feb. 13, 2010. The mark was tied four more times (once apiece by Mike Moore and Taran Buie and twice by the late great Zeke Upshaw) over the next 171 games before Brian Bernardi broke it against Canisius on Nov. 13, 2015. And Bernardi held sole possession of the record for 182 games, a span in which four players had at least one game with seven 3-pointers (Justin Wright-Foreman 3, Tareq Coburn 2 and Bernardi and Desure Buie with one apiece), before Jalen Ray tied Bernardi by hitting eight 3-pointers against Towson on Feb. 6. Bernardi and Ray spent just 11 games as a duo before Silverio's record-tying effort.
ZACH STILL COOKIN’ (part one)
Zach Cooks scored 20 points Saturday afternoon as he extended his career-opening (well, at Hofstra, at least) streak of double-digit scoring efforts to seven games. Cooks is just the fifth player in the last 30 years to begin his Hofstra career by scoring in double figures in at least six straight games and the first since 2014-15, when Juan’ya Green scored in double figures in every game on his way to building a 43-game streak and Ameen Tanksley scored in double figures in his first 19 games.
Juan’ya Green 43 games (start of 2014-15 season through Dec. 9, 2015)
Ameen Tanksley 19 games (2014-15 season)
Seth Meyers 8 games (1995-96 season)
Antoine Agudio 7 games (2004-05 season)***
ZACH COOKS 7 games (2021-22 season)
***freshman
Speedy Claxton’s career-opening double-digit scoring streak lasted three games in 1996-97, while the late great Demetrius Dudley’s streak spanned four games in 1991-92.
ZACH STILL COOKIN’ (part two)
Per loyal reader EvanJ, Cooks is the first Hofstra player since at least the 2002-03 season to finish with at least 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and five steals in a single game. Cooks is almost surely the first Dutchman player to post a 20-5-5-5 game since that Speedy Claxton guy did it in a 90-57 win over New Hampshire on Feb. 18, 2000. Neither one of us has game-by-game logs from the 2001-02 season, but chances are it didn’t happen that year with the core of the back-to-back America East champs having graduated and the Dutchmen rebuilding.
RAY MOVIN' ON UP (part one)
Jalen Ray played in his 128th game for Hofstra Saturday afternoon, tied for third-most all-time with Charles Jenkins and Nathaniel Lester. As long as he plays tonight, Ray will move into a tie for second all-time with former teammate Eli Pemberton. Another former teammate of Ray’s, Desure Buie, holds the program record with 141 games played.
RAY MOVIN’ ON UP (part two)
With his 15 points Saturday, Ray crept closer to making more upward climbs on the all-time Hofstra scoring list. Ray enters tonight with 1,410 points, 13 shy of surpassing Rick Apodaca for 14th place all-time as well as 26 points shy of surpassing Leroy Allen for 13th place and 28 points away from moving past Fran Walker into 12th place.
12.) Frank Walker 1,437
13.) Leroy Allen 1,435
14.) Rick Apodaca 1,422
15.) JALEN RAY 1,410
16.) Ken Rood 1,368
OVER THE AIR
Today’s game will be aired on FloHoops.com (subscription required). Hofstra will provide a radio feed as well as live stats at the Pride Productions hub.
PRINCETON AND THE IVY LEAGUE
Princeton, under 11th-year head coach Mitch Henderson, is 5-2 this season after beating Fairleigh Dickinson, 89-79, on Sunday.
Princeton was picked to finish third in the Ivy League, which did not play last season due to the pandemic and did not have an all-preseason team this year. Senior guard Ethan Wright leads the Tigers with 15.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. Senior guard Jaelin Llewellyn (14.3 points per game), junior guards Ryan Langborg (11.7 points per game) and junior forward Tosan Evbouwman (11.5 points per game) are also averaging in double figures.
The Dutchmen and Tigers have three common opponents. Princeton suffered its most recent loss Nov. 24 when it fell to Monmouth, 76-64. The Dutchmen are scheduled to play Monmouth Dec. 22. After facing Hofstra, the Tigers are slated to play CAA foe Drexel on Saturday and Bucknell on Dec. 7. The Dutchmen are scheduled to face Bucknell on Saturday.
Hofstra is 3-3 all-time against Princeton. The teams last opposed each other Dec. 19, 2019, when the Dutchmen trekked to New Jersey and earned an 87-72 win in the first game between the schools in more than 28 years.
Hofstra is 30-17 all-time against Ivy League schools.
At KenPom.com this morning, Hofstra is ranked 136th while Princeton is ranked 152nd. KenPom.com predicts a 76-72 win for the Dutchmen. Per the wise guys in Vegas, for entertainment purposes only, the Dutchmen are 5-point favorites. The Dutchmen are 4-2 against the spread this season.
THINGS YOU CAN SHOUT ON TWITTER IF CALLS GO DO NOT GO HOFSTRA’S WAY
VBK bias! (Stick with the classics)
Larry Lucchino bias! (Lucchino played for Butch van Breda Kolff on Princeton’s 1965 Final Four team)
Backdoor cut bias! (Pete Carril, who played under VBK at Lafayette, called the gorgeous play that resulted in Princeton upsetting UCLA in the first round of the 1996 NCAA Tournament)
Chris Young bias! (The former Mets pitcher and current Rangers GM graduated from Princeton)
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