Me? The other night, I tried to figure out where the Flying Dutchmen’s 15-18 record last season ranked in terms of winning percentage since 1993-94, my first season on campus. Does this guy know how to party or what?
As I went to sleep, I guessed it was the 10th-worst winning percentage over the last 32 seasons. Turns out the .455 winning percentage was 11th-worst, just behind the 1996-97 team (12-15, ,444) and just ahead of the 2016-17 squad (15-17, .469). As I say to my Dad all the time: We’re all born with gifts, some more easily monetized than others.
Anyway, the point is last season wasn’t great, but it was nowhere near the worst we’ve ever experienced. If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need to be reminded what life was like before Speedy Claxton, or after Charles Jenkins.
And if a .455 winning percentage barely ranks amongst the bottom third of the worst seasons we’ve experienced over almost a third of a century (yikes)…well, we’ve had it pretty good, especially considering what preceded last season: Seven straight winning campaigns in which the Dutchmen were 79 games over .500 while winning three CAA regular season crowns, one CAA Tournament title and the 2020 national championship. Prove me wrong, children!
But no other sub-.500 season in the Defiantly Dutch era carried with it so much existential angst. And it only had a little to do with the state of the world!
Most of the previous sub-.500 seasons provided valuable experience for young players who became the foundation of subsequently successful mini-eras. The Dutchmen went 65-29 and made the NCAA Tournament once in Claxton’s final three seasons before going 61-38 in Jenkins’ final three seasons.
The 2016-17 team adjusted to life without Juan’ya Green but unearthed the program’s next superstar in Justin Wright-Foreman, who scored 1,703 points while leading the Dutchmen to a 46-20 record in his last two seasons. Eli Pemberton and Desure Buie, the centerpieces of the 2020 national champs, were also on the ’16-17 squad.
In an earlier time, last season could have signaled a similar coming-out party for sophomores Cruz Davis and Jean Aranguren, who struggled to fill the void left behind by Tyler Thomas but still had two more seasons with which to grow into their roles as cornerstone, go-to players.
Except the current season is the only thing you can count on in a world of instant transfers and seemingly endless NIL funds. This is not a complaint. It’s about time student-athletes — forever exploited as college sports grows into a bigger, huger and more gargantuan business — got a little power. It’s outdated at best and patronizing at worst to expect a scholarship to suffice as compensation.
Nor is it a complaint to note Hofstra lacks the infrastructure to compete with the power five schools or the premier mid-majors. Nobody comes to Hofstra expecting to win national championships in men’s basketball (except that 2020 one). We take, pardon the pun, pride in the school actually taking its academic mission seriously, especially these days, with higher education under attack from within. Turning into a win-at-all-costs sports factory would feel a little gross and unsettling.
But we also like the opportunity to sit at the edge of the big kids’ table and hope to score an invite to their dance once in a while. And those opportunities, already finite and fleeting, feel even more so when gazing at a landscape that is unrecognizable even from Claxton’s first season as head coach in 2021-22.
Back then, it was realistic to think Hofstra could hang on to Aaron Estrada for two years before he went to help Alabama to the Final Four, or keep Thomas for his final two seasons after he transferred up from Sacred Heart, or that perfect CAA-level players such as Jaquan Carlos and Darlinstone Dubar would complete their careers with the Dutchmen.
Now? The money is changing hands and players are changing teams at a whirlwind pace. Just four of the 18 players who were named to all-CAA teams last year and had eligibility remaining will return to their CAA school this season. Two of the transfers — Colby Duggan and CJ Luster II — transferred within the league from Campbell and Stony Brook to Charleston and UNC Wilmington, respectively, a reminder Hofstra is occupying a conference with some of those premier mid-majors.
Hofstra didn’t lose anyone to a CAA rival, and for a few days it looked like the Dutchmen might not lose either of their big two. But while Davis remained, Aranguren transferred to George Washington after initially planning to return.
These days, keeping one star counts as a win, even if it underlines the fragility of mid-major life in the 2020s. One reason the Dutchmen finished 15-18 last season was Davis and Aranguren were thrust into the go-to roles when Jaquan Sanders, a Seton Hall transfer who was the focus of recruiting efforts the previous spring, flopped.
So much had to go right in the pre-NIL era to win a conference title. But one subpar season is a reminder the margin for error is even thinner now — as well as a reminder of the potential butterfly effect of that one subpar season.
Hofstra’s steadiness and focus on men’s basketball instead of football allowed it to become a CAA power as other schools came and went in search of Bahamas Bowl goodness. What if that’s no longer enough? What if Hofstra is amongst the have-nots in a league dominated by Charleston and UNC Wilmington, neither of whom play football, and Towson, which plays football but managed to retain reigning CAA Player of the Year Tyler Tejada as well as all-CAA second teamer Dylan Williamson?
Where can Hofstra go if competing in the CAA is no longer a realistic goal? And what happens to Hofstra and the rest of the mid-majors if and when the power four or five (not so fast, ACC) decide to break off and do their own thing?
If you’re an alum from the mid-90s or earlier, you’ve already seen a pair of nationally relevant programs either eliminated (football) or slip into afterthought status (men’s lacrosse). And to be fair, they’ve been replaced as tentpole sports by the men’s and women’s soccer programs, each of whom may be even more viable on a national level now than football or men’s lacrosse were then.
Still, given what we’ve seen and the chaotic nature of college sports today, it’s hard not ponder these existential worries (you can’t spell existential without n-i-l) while trying to fall asleep. Beats mulling other existential worries, I suppose, even if all of these existential worries will or will not come to fruition regardless of how much tossing and turning we do.
So when it comes to the Flying Dutchmen, why not embrace the doubly underdog status by looking at them as if they’re the Cleveland baseball team in Major League?
Even in the before times, mid-major fandom has always been about cheering for a collection of overlooked players plying their trade for an overlooked school. This feels particularly accurate for Hofstra fans rooting for a mid-major program located in the midst of the densest pro sports area of the country. Come to think of it, a credit card commercial introducing the Flying Dutchmen to the locals is actually a pretty good way to raise some NIL funds!
It’s not a perfect analogy. Thankfully, the school president is no longer the academic version of Rachel Phelps, looking to tank certain programs. Claxton’s less ornery than Lou Brown and has never had to worry about selling anyone a set of whitewalls. German Plotnikov is going to become the rare four-year player in this era, but I suppose he’s not as old as Jake Taylor or Eddie Harris.
The good news is Davis is much better than anyone Brown inherited with his ragtag bunch. Maybe Plotnikov can emerge as the wizened team leader who’s seen it all except a championship. Maybe the 6-foot-10 Victory Onuetu, a surprising last-second addition from Spain, or freshman guard Preston Edmead can be the out-of-nowhere stars who turn a team into a contender and galvanize the fan base, a la Ricky Vaughn or Willie Mays Hayes. And if you’re telling me a key newcomer is the basketball version of Pedro Cerrano and can’t hit the curveball, err, hit a free throw? Been there, done that.
Plus, when accounting for the cost of inflation, a 35-year pennant drought is pretty much the equivalent of a 24-year NCAA Tournament drought. So the heck with the middle-of-the-night existential angst. Let’s spend the next four-plus months doing what we always do, hoping the Flying Dutchmen can become CAA contenders (even if no one around here recognizes them) and riding the highs and lows of a regular season even though we know the regular season has been rendered meaningless by the powers that be. Can you believe this is 20 years since Tom O’Connor and the great screw job?
Everything has changed or is changing and it’s all a little disconcerting, But through all the morphing challenges, trials and tribulations, there, as always, remains only one thing left for the Flying Dutchmen to do.
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