Things may or may not go like this over the next couple days! (Language warning!)
After a pre-Thanksgiving break, the Flying Dutchmen will continue their Pennsylvania residency (it’s like the Eagles — not those Eagles — in Las Vegas, except possibly longer) this afternoon, when they begin play in the Cathedral Classic by facing La Salle and our old friends Joe Mihalich, Colin Curtin and Shane Nichols.
As will hopefully become the routine following all games this year (not just CAA clashes), I ran down the boilerplate material from last Wednesday’s loss to Temple in Thursday's Keep It Perky. Today will be about the individual news and notes from that defeat as well as a preview of the Explorers. Enjoy!
STAYING SINGLE (DIGITS)
The Dutchmen and Temple weren’t separated by more than eight points last Wednesday. It was the second time this season the Dutchmen played a game in which neither team opened a double-digit lead. The Dutchmen and Central Florida each led by nine points in the Dutchmen’s 82-78 loss in the season opener Nov. 3. In a quirky twist, the Dutchmen have lost their last seven games in which neither team led by more than nine points dating back to a 68-63 overtime win over Rice in the Baha Mar Hoops: Nassau Championship last Nov. 29. Hey! That’s a year ago tomorrow!
GERMAN’S MILESTONE
German Plotnikov might have become the last Hofstra player to join a select club last Wednesday, when he played in his 100th career game. Plotnikov is the first Hofstra player to play in 100 games since Darlinstone Dubar, who played in exactly 100 games from 2021-24, and the 44th to do so in school history, per StatHead. Twenty-eight of those players have suited up for the Dutchmen during the Defiantly Dutch era (1993-pres), but Plotnikov and Dubar are the only ones to do so in the NIL era. For an idea of how rare this might become, Dubar reached 100 games by playing in every Hofstra game during his three-season career. So even a three-year player such as Silas Sunday, who missed one game in 2023-24, might be hard-pressed to reach the milestone. Different times.
CRUZ-IN
Cruz Davis once again offered a glimpse at his potential as a go-to guy last Wednesday, when he scored a season-high 25 points on 9-of-18 shooting, including 5-of-10 from 3-point land. The 25 points and five 3-pointers were each the most for Davis since Feb. 22, when he tied a career-high with 28 points and drained a career-high six 3-pointers in a 78-65 win over Delaware. Davis has scored in double figures in 26 of the 37 games in which he’s played for Hofstra after reaching double figures just five times over 28 games in his first two seasons at Iona and St. John’s. The Dutchmen are 14-12 when Davis scores in double figures.
SECOND CHANCES
Cruz Davis did most of his damage in the second half last Wednesday, when he scored 20 of his 25 points after intermission. The 20 second-half points were the most by a Hofstra player since Jean Aranguren scored 25 of his career-high 35 points in the second half of a 77-68 loss to Northeastern on Feb. 6.
BIGGIE COMES UP, WELL, BIG
Biggie Patterson continued his fast start last Wednesday, when he scored 15 points and pulled down two rebounds over 25 minutes. Patterson has scored in double figures in four straight games for the first time in his two seasons at the Division I level. He reached double figures in back-to-back games on two occasions (great song) for Iona last season. In addition, Patterson’s 59 points over the last four games are the most points he’s scored over a four-game span in the last two seasons. He had 56 points for Iona against Rice, Sacred Heart, Saint Peter’s and Colgate last Dec. 1-22.
BIGGIE’S BIG START
Biggie Patterson bookended Cruz Davis’ fast finish with a fast start by scoring the Dutchmen’s first eight points last Wednesday. Patterson is the first Hofstra player to score the team’s first eight points or more since…Cruz Davis way back on Mar. 7, when Davis scored the Dutchmen’s first eight points in a 77-55 win over North Carolina A&T in the first round of the CAA Tournament.
DECADY DANCE
Joshua DeCady had his best game of the season last Wednesday, when he scored 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting over 19 minutes. DeCady, who also hit his first 3-pointer of the season last Wednesday, entered the game with 15 points over the Dutchmen’s first four contests. The 13 points were the most for DeCady since Jan. 30, when he collected a career-high 15 points in a 74-63 win over Not Twitter Guy.
VICTORY!
Junior newcomer Victory Onuetu continued to offer intrigue last Wednesday, when he started for the second straight game and flirted with another double-double by finishing with seven points and nine rebounds over 26 minutes. Onuetu, who had double-doubles in his previous two games, has at least seven points and nine rebounds in each of the last four games after finishing with eight points and four rebounds in the season-opening 82-78 loss to Central Florida on Nov. 3
GERMAN FOR STARTERS
German Plotnikov was solid in his milestone game last Wednesday, when he finished with eight points, one block and one steal over 25 minutes. Plotnikov has scored at least eight points in four of the five games this season and in 10 of his last 11 games dating back to Feb. 20.
PRESTO!
Freshman point guard Preston Edmead had the first hiccup of his rookie season last Wednesday, when he scored six points on 3-of-13 shooting — including 0-of-8 from 3-point land — and led the Dutchmen with six assists. The six-point outing snapped Edmead’s career-opening streak of double-digit scoring efforts at four games, which was the longest by a true freshman since Eli Pemberton began his career by getting into double figures in his first five games from Nov. 11-22, 2016. However, Edmead has at least five assists in all five of his games — a figure reached last season by only Jean Aranguren (14 games with at least five assists) and Cruz Davis (12 games with at least five assists).
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!
Silas Sunday came off the bench behind Victory Onuetu against last Wednesday, when Sunday finished with two points and a season-high seven rebounds over 14 minutes. The seven rebounds were the most for Sunday since Mar. 1, when he had nine rebounds in a 70-49 win over North Carolina A&T. Sunday has just five points but 15 rebounds over his last three games.
REBOUNDS FOR REAVES
Graduate student Joshua Aaron Reaves was scoreless with four rebounds over 12 minutes off the bench last Wednesday. Reaves has scored in one game this season but has collected at least four rebounds four times in five appearances.
WHERE THERE’S A WILLS THERE’S A WAY
AJ Wills continued serving as the backup point guard to Preston Edmead last Wednesday, when he missed his only field goal attempt, a 3-pointer, over a season-low three minutes. Wills averaged 7.8 minutes per game over the first four games.
OVER THE AIR
Today’s game is slated to be carried live on ESPNPlus, which you have if you have the Disney Bundle, which you have if you have a child under 18. (Alas mine mostly watches Max, Netflix and YouTube, sigh) Hofstra will provide a radio feed as well as live stats at the Pride Productions hub.
LA SALLE AND THE ATLANTIC 10
La Salle, under first-year head coach Darris Nichols, is 3-3 this season after defeating Division III Lancaster Bible 75-46 last Saturday.
La Salle was picked to finish 13th in the 14-team Atlantic 10. Math remains very hard. The Explorers return just one player from last year’s team — junior guard Eric Acker, who opened his career at Long Island University before transferring to La Salle prior to last season.
Graduate student Jaeden Marshall, who opened his career at Bossier Parish Community College before spending two seasons at Omaha and last season at Niagara, leads La Salle with 12.5 points per game. True freshman Ashton Walker is averaging 10.5 points and a team-high 4.3 assists per game. Redshirt junior Jerome Brewer Jr., who played his first two seasons at Texas A&M-Commerce before sitting out last year, is averaging 9.7 points per game. Graduate student Justin Archer, who played two years at Radford and spent last season at Georgia State, leads the Explorers with 4.5 rebounds per game. Graduate student Noah Collier, who opened his career with two seasons at Pittsburgh before playing the last three seasons at William & Mary, has yet to play this year.
Per KenPom.com, La Salle ranks 220th nationally in offensive efficiency (104.9 points per 100 possessions) and 240th in defensive efficiency (111.0 points per 100 possessions) while ranking 339th in tempo (66.3 possessions per 40 minutes).
The Dutchmen and Explorers have a whopping five common opponents this season. Both teams lost to Temple earlier this month, when La Salle fell 90-63 on Nov. 11 and the Owls beat the Dutchmen 81-76 eight days later. As noted last week, this means Dutchmen are playing consecutive games against the teams Hofstra beat in consecutive ECC title games in 1976-77 to earn the program’s first two NCAA Tournament bids as a Division I program under the late Roger Gaeckler. Eerie.
La Salle defeated CAA foe Monmouth 73-60 on Nov. 8 and is slated to face Drexel on Dec. 6. The Dutchmen and Explorers will also close out the Cathedral Classic by facing Merrimack and Pennsylvania.
The Dutchmen are 6-15 all-time against La Salle. Today’s meeting between the schools is the first since Dec. 2, 2015, when Joe Mihalich earned his 300th career win as the Dutchmen edged the Explorers 84-80.
Hofstra is 40-111 all-time against current Atlantic 10 schools, a membership that includes former conference foes La Salle (ECC) as well as old CAA pals George Mason and VCU. This marks the 13th straight season in which Hofstra has faced at least one A-10 school.
At KenPom.com this morning, Hofstra is ranked 156th while La Salle is ranked 230th. KenPom.com predicts a 72-70 win for the Dutchmen. Per the wise guys in Vegas, for entertainment purposes only, the Dutchmen are 3-point favorites. The Dutchmen are 3-1 against the spread this season.
HELLO OLD FRIENDS
Tom Pecora always says it’s weird playing your friends and now we get an idea of what he’s talking about — twice this season!
The La Salle coaching staff features three former Hofstra coaches — most notably, of course, the great Joe Mihalich, who directed the Flying Dutchmen to the cathartic CAA championship in 2020 and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament that never was. The CAA championship game was the final on the Hofstra sidelines for Mihalich, who made a borderline miraculous recovery from a stroke in the summer of 2020 and spent the 2021-22 season as a special assistant to Hofstra athletic director Rick Cole Jr. before heading back to La Salle, his alma mater, as a special assistant to the head coach.
Colin Curtin, who served as Mihalich’s assistant at Niagara and Hofstra and spent the last four seasons on Speedy Claxton’s staff, was named an assistant coach last spring by new head coach Darrin Nichols, who also brought upon his brother Shane as his top assistant. Shane Nichols was on Mihalich’s staff during the latter’s final season at Niagara and his first two campaigns at Hofstra. So if ever there was a game in which we just wanted everyone to do well and for no one to lose…
THINGS YOU CAN SHOUT ON TWITTER (OR BLUESKY) IF CALLS GO DO NOT GO HOFSTRA’S WAY
Joe Mihalich bias! (He played there too!)
L-Train bias! (Lionel Simmons, who played at La Salle when Joe Mihalich was an assistant, scored 3,217 points, the third-most all-time upon his graduation in 1990 and still the fifth-most all-time)
Tim Legler bias! (Legler, who played two seasons with Simmons, won the NBA’s Three-Point Contest at the 1996 All-Star Game)
Onions bias! (The great Bill Raftery graduated from La Salle)
Paul Westhead bias! (The former Lakers, Loyola Marymount and George Mason — really — head coach graduated from La Salle)
Too many people here we don’t want to root against bias! (Duh)
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