Delaware 71, Hofstra 57 (Or: The truth is not kind)

Has anyone figured out the theme of the postgame recaps? Anyone? Loyal Reader Missy? In the meantime enjoy some appropriate folk rock goodness.

The great thing about “what if” scenarios are the escape from reality, the alternate universe and the hope they provide. We all like to think that everything would be much different and much better, if only one little (or big) thing had gone our way.

If I’d thought before speaking that winter night in 1992, maybe a bitter breakup is avoided. If the wonderful people who used to employ me were a little more wonderful four years ago this month, maybe I would have gotten that dream job in Boston and told them to pound sand instead of vice versa.

(These are, of course, just random examples completely unrelated to any of my life experiences)

If George Mason didn’t have its athletic director on the Selection Committee and “not in the room” six years ago next month, maybe Hofstra gets into the NCAA Tournament and history is altered forever.

(These are, of course, specifically selected examples of my crappy life experiences)

The 2011-12 Flying Dutchmen season has been one big “what if?” What if Thanksgiving weekend in Rhode Island was just the beginning for the optimal Dutchmen instead of the end? What if Stevie Mejia’s hamstring didn’t go boom and Bryant Crowder didn’t go…well, whatever he went?

More recently, we’ve been wondering “what if?” about the team that’s actually on the court. What if the Dutchmen got just one stop against Northeastern Jan. 11? What if it an actual professional referee was on the court for the home game against Drexel Jan. 18? What if one of the several good looks the Dutchmen got while trying to tie the score or take the lead against George Mason Jan. 25 actually fell? What if the Dutchmen closed the gap to five points against Georgia State late in the second half Feb. 4?

If only one or two of those things had gone the Dutchmen’s way, maybe a few of those losses turn into wins and they’re floating around the middle of the CAA and flirting with .500 instead of mired in an engrossing battle for the 10th seed and needing to advance to a regional final just to get back to the break-even mark.

Of course, the dangers of “what if?” lie in what might actually happen if those asking the question get a chance to rewrite history. Because the truth is life rarely turns on a single dime. If the relationship or the job didn’t work out, well, it was probably headed for a nasty breakup even if harsh words weren’t swapped or a beancounter on the other side of the continent didn’t get a bug up his butt.

And if a basketball team has, as its conference record, a record more often associated with NFL teams that earn the no. 1 draft pick, well, it’s probably a lot more than one or two twists of fate away from contending. This is what we learned Tuesday night, when the Flying Dutchmen fell to Delaware, 71-57, and in the process reminded us they’d probably have a Valentine’s Day-esque CAA record on Valentine’s Day no matter what.

As has so often been the case this season, the Dutchmen played from behind much of the game. But unlike their first game this season against Delaware—which was the genesis of this whole “what if?” exercise—the Dutchmen climbed all the way back from a 13-point first half deficit and took a 50-49 lead on Mike Moore’s 3-pointer with 8:02 left.

It was the Dutchmen’s first lead of the season against Delaware, and Moore—who missed two free throws with a chance to put the Dutchmen ahead with 22 seconds left in a 67-66 loss to the Blue Hens Jan. 4—draining the go-ahead shot seemed to portend a change in fortune for Hofstra.

Alas, the Dutchmen were outscored 22-7 the rest of the way, which meant the Dutchmen ended the game in even more discouraging fashion than they started it, when they fell behind 17-4 seven minutes in. So other than being outscored 39-11 to begin and end the game, Mo Cassara, how was the play?

“Our margin for error is just very small,” Cassara said. “We continue to do some really good things, but we haven’t been able, at crunch time, to be mentally tough enough to make those one or two stops or one or two plays or one extra basket or one extra pass to take that lead from one to three, maybe make them get a timeout and then get one extra basket and all of a sudden we’re back where we need to be.”

Instead on Tuesday, Moore’s 3-pointer was the penultimate (love that word) basket for the Dutchmen, who didn’t score from the field again until Nathaniel Lester put back his own miss with 20 seconds to play. Before the game got out of hand following the final media timeout, the Dutchmen missed five chances to go ahead, tie the score or pull within a basket. In addition, Moore missed two of three free throws, including one of two following a technical on Delaware’s Khalid Lewis with 5:29 left and the Blue Hens clinging to a 53-50 lead.

The Dutchmen didn’t shoot much better earlier in the game. They were just 16-of-57 from the field, the second time in the last four games they’ve shot less than 30 percent from the field and the fourth straight time they’ve shot less than 40 percent. The Dutchmen had three players score in double figures, but Moore, Lester and Mejia were just 11-of-39 combined.

“I really thought we were right there,” Cassara said. “I thought the pressure would shift back to them. I thought we had finally gotten some energy. I thought the group out there had done a great job. We fought all the way back and we’re right there at the eight-minute mark and we finally got our leagues a little bit and we had a bunch of great opportunities. I even thought after the technical foul [that] momentum had really swung our way.

“They made a couple tough shots, then we came down and missed. Nat had a three go in and out, Mike had a driving layup go in and out, missed a couple free throws and all of a sudden the lead was insurmountable.”

And now so might be the hole in which the Dutchmen are mired. Oh, the season has been basically wrecked for weeks, but the Dutchmen might be completely gassed after the most disappointing of the 20 losses.

In addition to losing by 14 after answering a “what if?” Cassara announced afterward David Imes (hip pointer) would miss at least the rest of the regular season. While Imes has not matched the numbers he put up last year, he’s still a valuable, experienced front court presence. Now the Dutchmen’s rotation is down to seven scholarship players and Grogan.

At some point, a team runs out of resiliency. The Dutchmen will continue to work hard, but reality almost surely crept in Tuesday. And while they still hope to win a couple games in Richmond to lessen the sting of this forgettable season, it will instead almost surely be defined by bits of encouragement that were, for whatever reason, unsustainable.

Maybe some of those stretches can serve as building blocks for next season: Mejia seems to be regaining his shot and his confidence after an injury-ruined season and scored eight straight points for the Dutchmen during a 14-5 run in the first half. Stephen Nwaukoni earned an early benching from Cassara but had four points in that run. And while Moore’s 3-pointer capped the 10-0 run that gave the Dutchmen their lone lead, Grogan opened it with a 3-pointer and Moussa Kone scored the next four points. Kone finished with eight rebounds and two blocks in just 21 minutes.

Some other stretches will have us wondering what if. Moore produced all the Dutchmen’s points in an 8-2 run that tied the game at 28 with a little more than three minutes to play in the first half. But while he had a very good game in the boxscore (16 points, seven rebounds, five assists), he also had a team-high three turnovers, was just 5-of-16 from the field and spent five minutes on the bench in the second half for the second straight game.

“Sometimes you start off slow, but you just try to shrug it off and bounce back, which we did,” Moore said. “We were right there in the second half. Took the lead.”

Then Moore took a deep breath.

“We just have to find some answers,” he said.

Unfortunately, they did.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Delaware, 2/14)

3: Stevie Mejia

2: Moussa Kone

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 57

Nathaniel Lester 41

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 14

Stevie Mejia 12

Stephen Nwaukoni 10

Shemiye McLendon 9

Moussa Kone 5

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Hofstra 79, Delaware 60 (Or: One more time, with feeling)

Charles Jenkins' Senior Day was such a big deal, I actually posted a video from this century!

It was just a false alarm, but there was no stopping the tears for Charles Jenkins.

With 1:31 to play Saturday afternoon in the Flying Dutchmen’s 79-60 rout of Delaware, Mo Cassara called timeout to begin subbing out his seniors so that they could receive one more standing ovation in their final regular season home game. It wasn’t Jenkins’ turn yet—Greg Washington was the first to head to the bench—but Jenkins began to pace near midcourt, bending over and grabbing at his shorts as if he was in almost indescribable pain.

Which he was. “I just didn’t want to get off the court,” Jenkins said.

There would be no avoiding the hook 33 seconds later, when Cassara called another timeout and freshman Roland Brown assured himself a spot in the trivia books when he came on for Jenkins. The senior superstar, who began the day by seeing his number retired during Senior Day festivities, buried his face in his jersey and was hugged first by Yves Jules, who was also heading to the bench, and Brown before he slowly made his way to the sidelines as the sellout crowd of 5,050 at Hofstra Arena stood and applauded and the student section chanted “Charles Jenkins!”

Jenkins, his face still in his jersey, fell into the shoulders of Cassara and shared a mutually teary-eyed embrace. “It’s an emotional time for all of us,” Cassara said. “[For] he and I to be able to share that moment, for all the time we’ve spent on and off the court since we started, was something that I don’t think any of us imagined would happen.”

Appropriately enough, an unimaginable regular season ended with an unlikely result. The Flying Dutchmen, who locked up the third seed in the first half when VCU lost to James Madison 72-69, specialized in narrow, grinding victories during the CAA season: Entering Saturday, their previous seven league wins had been by a combined 32 points. In the most symbolic win of the season, the Dutchmen led wire-to-wire in the first meeting of the season against Delaware Feb. 12 and still only won by three points.

Yet the one game in which Jenkins wanted to stay on the floor until the very end turned out to be the Dutchmen’s easiest win of the conference season and their most lopsided win since the season-opening 40-point win over Division III Farmingdale State. The Dutchmen trailed just twice, led for the final 28 minutes and enjoyed a double-digit margin for the final 15 minutes.

And so Jenkins, who finished with a game-high 21 points (damn that lack of an extra free throw!) with four assists, four steals, three rebounds and no turnovers, felt an unfamiliar sense of dread as the final minutes ticked off the clock. “Last night I was joking around with our manager, we were thinking of all these great ideas for me to do when coach subbed me out,” Jenkins said. “He wanted me to take my jersey off and lay at half-court. Sign my sneakers and throw them to the crowd.

“But, you know, once the time started winding down and I saw that they were out of reach, it was just something I really didn’t want to do.”

The lopsided victory ensured Jenkins would end his final home game the way he began it. Jenkins was visibly moved during the Senior Day festivities, when he first walked to center court with his family and was presented with a framed jersey before he watched as his jersey was officially retired.

Jenkins put his hands on top of his head, a la David Cone, once the banner with his name and uniform number on it was fully unfurled next to Speedy Claxton’s. “One of the things Mo told me after I got the news that they were retiring my jersey was ‘Now my brother’s really looking down on me,’” Jenkins said. “That 22 represents my brother’s age when he passed away. So one of the things I thought about this last game [is] me and him are going to be in this building together.”

After all that, there was a game to be played, and Jenkins began it in typical fashion by draining a 3-pointer. Jenkins and fellow seniors Washington and Brad Kelleher scored the Dutchmen’s first 11 points, but while all three players had impressive home finales (Washington had 12 points, eight rebounds and four blocks while Kelleher had 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting with five assists and five rebounds), the most encouraging part of the victory was its balanced nature.

Five Dutchmen scored in double figures (improving Hofstra’s record to 5-0 in such games) and nine players scored. The Dutchmen shot better than 50 percent from the field (30-of-59), drained all 15 free throws (the third time this season they’ve been perfect from the line in at least 10 attempts) and limited Delaware to 35.4 percent shooting from the field.

Cassara, who has spoken for weeks about how he believed the Dutchmen were going to enjoy a near-perfect game, said Saturday’s effort was “almost” it. “We didn’t quite get there, we just couldn’t quite put them away, but obviously we ended up winning with a pretty comfortable margin,” Cassara said. “The scoring was spread out and we found different ways to score. And when we have a bunch of guys score in double digits and play some pretty good defense, we’re going to have an opportunity to win.”

The Dutchmen took the lead for good with a 13-5 run midway through the first half in which all their points were scored by underclassmen David Imes, Shemiye McLendon, Yves Jules and Mike Moore. McLendon and Jules were particularly impressive: McLendon, who slumped most of February before he was benched last Wednesday against UNC Wilmington, often looked like the best player on the floor during 22 inspired minutes in which he scored 11 points, pulled down five rebounds had four assists and continually broke down the Delaware defense by weaving through multiple players.

“Great coaching move,” Cassara said with a laugh.

Jules, meanwhile, continued to thrive in his role as designated defensive stopper with two steals—one of which he took all the way for a dunk—and by forcing Devon Saddler into a five-second call in the final 10 seconds of the first half. Moore (11 points) hit a layup as time expired to give the Dutchmen a 33-26 lead.

Less than a minute before Jenkins made his final exit, Jules ended up as the answer to another trivia question when he drained a long jumper off a pass from Jenkins—the last of Jenkins’ thousands of statistical contributions at the Arena.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous since I was a freshman,” Jenkins said. “It was too much emotion. First half, it was just hard to play. I was too busy knowing that this is going to be my last game here. Everybody that knows me, they know that I stay here every summer just to stay in the gym. This is kind of like my home.

“I remember joking around with one of the [Delaware] players on the court. He was telling me I was going to miss my [shot]. I told him ‘This is where I live.’”

He wasn’t quite done basking in the moment at his second home, though: Jenkins spent an hour after the game Saturday signing autographs and attended the Flying Dutchwomen’s stunning comeback win over James Madison Sunday afternoon. Following the victory, he walked into the media room and took a seat in the front row, where he asked Chronicle reporter Joe Pantorno if he could ask a question (Pantorno said yes but Jenkins settled for merely holding the tape recorder).

Such a versatile weekend was fitting for a player whose jersey now hangs in the rafters as much for what he did on the court as how he embraced Hofstra off it.

“I’m proud of him,” said his close friend Washington. “I don’t think that any other person would be able to do what he did and how he did it. He earned every bit of respect from this league and the nation and the basketball world. Sky’s the limit for him. I’m proud of him. I’m just glad that he’s on our side.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Delaware, 2/26)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Greg Washington

1: Brad Kelleher

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 77

Mike Moore 37

Greg Washington 27

David Imes 19

Brad Kelleher 8

Shemiye McLendon 5

Dwan McMillan 5

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Hofstra 61, Delaware 58 (Or: I feel like chicken soup tonight)

Did you do this to me?!

Very sorry this is so late, but sometime between the end of the Flying Dutchmen’s 61-58 win over Delaware Saturday afternoon and the time I put my head to pillow in a truly crappy Howard Johnson’s early Sunday morning, I either got food poisoning (say it ain’t so Chick-Fil-A!) or the stomach flu and I’ve spent the last 48 hours becoming besties with my bathroom. Thank goodness my wife went down to Delaware with me because if I had to make the drive home by myself I’d probably still be in Brooklyn. That was an interesting ride home.

Anyway, it sucks to have to do five post-game thoughts for a game I actually covered, but as the saying goes, you can’t fight diarrhea. Or something like that. Here goes:

1.) Charles Jenkins was The Wolf when it mattered most. Jenkins had a quiet game by his standards—23 points, three rebounds, three assists, three turnovers, one steal—but scored the Flying Dutchmen’s last six pressure-packed points to keep Delaware from stealing a game it never led (seriously, I would love to know if that’s ever happened before—Hofstra leading wire-to-wire and winning by three). Jenkins drained a jumper with Devon Saddler in his face to extend the Dutchmen’s lead to 57-53. After Saddler’s layup made it a two-point game again, Jenkins bled the shot clock, drove the lane with less than five seconds to go, drew the foul from Delaware forward Jamelle Hagins and hit both shots to put the Dutchmen up four again. And for good measure, he blocked Saddler’s shot on the other end with nine seconds to go, grabbed the board, drew the foul and hit two foul shots to ice it. The Wolf. He solves problems.

“Everybody in the gym knew who was going to get the ball,” Jenkins said. “I’d been getting fouled early in the game and I really wasn’t getting rewarded for the phusical play, but at the end I really decided to go after the big man and not shy away.”

“We called a timeout, ran a play for Charles, he made a big-time jump shit and then we called another play that we executed with him driving to the basket and he made two big free throws,” Mo Cassara said. “That’s what All-Americans do. Makes me look like a good coach.”

2.) Before Jenkins’ transformation into The Wolf, the Dutchmen were carried by the trio of David Imes, Greg Washington and Mike Moore. Imes (six points, 12 rebounds) pulled down nine rebounds in the first half to spark a suffocating defensive performance by the Dutchmen (Delaware shot just 19.2 percent in the first half) and then hit two key jumpers in the first 10 minutes of the second half to quell mini-runs by Delaware. Washington had a big first half (nine points, three rebounds) that featured perhaps his niftiest basket ever—a spinning layup as the shot clock dwindled—before getting into foul trouble in the second half. And Moore had his trademark game, very quietly and with no fanfare netting 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting (including 2-of-4 from 3-point land) and pulling down five rebounds. We’re telling you, he’s Norman Richardson Jr.

3.) So how does a team lead wire-to-wire and only win by three? The Dutchmen’s youth and inexperience was on display as they nearly frittered away a handful of double-digit leads. The most telling sequence occurred just before the under eight timeout in the second half, when Stephen Nwaukoni stole the ball in the Delaware backcourt, dished to Shemiye McLendon…and then trotted over and gazed at Cassara as a suddenly pressured McLendon tried to save the ball from going out of bounds by firing it to Nwaukoni. Delaware ended up with the ball back and eventually capped the possession by hitting one of two free throws. A livid Cassara stared down Nwaukoni as he walked to the bench before he smashed his clipboard against the floor.

“I grabbed Stephen as we were walking to the locker room and I put my arm around him and I said ‘Listen, Stephen, I love you, our staff loves you and you’re going to get better and the best thing that you’re doing right now is you’re taking criticism and you’re handling it. You know you made a mistake, we talked about it, you went to the bench and you came back in and gave us some other minutes,’” Cassara said. “I’m real proud of that and that’s ultimately why our team is finding a way to win. We’re sticking together as a team because guys are willing to [handle] criticism, they’re willing to take responsibility for their mistakes and that’s the sign of a team. That’s what we’ve been preaching since last May.”

4.) Also indicative of the Dutchmen’s inconsistency and inexperience: A negative assist-to-turnover ratio (7/9) and a notable gap in the second half rebounding stats (Delaware pulled down nine offensive rebounds to just seven defensive boards for the Dutchmen). The good news, of course, is that it was just the fifth time this season the Dutchmen have had a negative assist-to-turnover ratio, only the second time since Puerto Rico and the first time they’ve managed to win a game with a negative ratio.

“I’m a little disappointed we only had seven assists, we didn’t share the ball as well as we need to, but we made plays when we had to,” Cassara said. “I thought our defensive intensity was great in the first half. Second half, we got a little lazy, a little tired and they really got to ever 50/50 ball. They had two, three chances at the basket. The games where we give up extra shots lke that—like we did against the Old Dominions and the Drexels—it’s really hard for us to win. So we have to really continue to work on that.”

5.) Hey, who cares, a win is a win. The Dutchmen flew to Georgia Tuesday, beat Georgia State Wednesday, flew home early Thursday, got on the bus early Friday afternoon and beat Delaware Saturday. Anyone anywhere in the CAA will take a 2-0 record through that stretch. And for good measure, the Dutchmen haven’t trailed in more than 78 minutes.

“We had two road games?” Jenkins asked. “Feels good. Most important is winning. I don’t really care where it is as long as we win.”

“I think for us to get out of this week with two wins is incredible—it’s an incredible testament to this team,” Cassara said. “The one thing we keep saying is we haven’t played our best basketball yet.”

The 2-0 week was especially valuable because it cemented the Dutchmen’s ability to control their own fate in the race for a bye. As long as they win two of their final three CAA games, the Dutchmen will be off Friday—an often-inconceivable thought during the chaos of last spring. They could cement a bye as early as tonight if they beat William & Mary and Drexel loses to UNC Wilmington.

“I’m very happy—thinking about a bye and having rest, waiting for teams to beat up on each other [and] for us to come on in and put more pressure on the team that just played the night before,” Jenkins said. “It’s definitely a good feeling. But we have three more games left and we just have to take care of business.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Delaware, 2/12)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Mike Moore

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 66

Mike Moore 33

Greg Washington 23

David Imes 16

Brad Kelleher 6

Shemiye McLendon 5

Dwan McMillan 5

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Hofstra 82, Delaware 69 (Or: And in the 16th game, the Dutchmen hit .500 again)

Last night I had the strangest dream...the Dutchmen rode to Newark, in a chartered bus to find .500... (Honestly I just couldn't resist posting this epic cheese)

The Flying Dutchmen made CAA/America East/NAC/ECC/pick a conference any conference history last night by clinching the mythical ECC championship (we’re number one! We’re number one!) with an 82-69 victory over Delaware.

At no point in the last 17 years—in any of the above-listed conferences, all of which have featured Hofstra at some point—has a team surged from five games under .500 in league play to reach the break-even point at any time in the season. (Among CAA teams, Old Dominion and American came closest by recovering from 1-5 and 0-4 starts in 1999-2000 and 1996-97 to even their records at 5-5 before finishing below .500) The Dutchmen, 2-7 in the CAA a mere 21 days ago, are now 8-8 and the hottest team in the league.

Yet the most notable thing about the historic win was the routine nature of it. It was just…a win. It wasn’t spectacular, a la the Dutchmen’s two recent wins over UNC Wilmington. Nor was it unnecessarily stressful, like the first win over Delaware at the Arena Jan. 30. It wasn’t a Signature Win, like the victory over Drexel a week ago tonight. Nor was it even an eye-opening win like the 20-point victory at James Madison Feb. 3.

It was just a win—a good team doing what it has to do in order to dispatch of a struggling opponent in an efficient manner. The Dutchmen took the lead for good less than seven minutes into the first half and never allowed Delaware to get closer than six points over the final 30 minutes. The Dutchmen hit their first 15 free throws, finished 17-of-20 from the line and committed just seven turnovers, one shy of their season low.

How about that. After 28 games of bipolar basketball, the Dutchmen are NORMAL.

“It was good enough to win at Delaware on the road,” Tom Pecora said from the bus afterward. “I don’t think it was good enough to win at one of the premier teams on the road. We weren’t sharp enough defensively in the second half, though I think that might have been the byproduct of our ability to score the ball tonight.

“We wanted to [do] what a good team does in the sense of being able to go on the road and just find a way to win a game by double digits. The last three road wins have been at Madison, Wilmington and here. Doesn’t matter who you’re playing, you go on the road and win by double digits, you’re doing pretty well.”

The Dutchmen continue their scorching play on offense, scoring at least 75 points for the third straight game and for the fifth time in seven games overall. They scored 75 points just five times in the first 21 games. The Dutchmen have scored 75 points in three consecutives games under Pecora just 10 times (the last from Feb. 16-23, 2008) and haven’t enjoyed a sustained high powered stretch like this since scoring at least 75 points in five of the first six games of the 2006-07 season.

Charles Jenkins scored a game-high 30 points—the second time in three games he’s reached 30 points—and tied a career-high with five 3-pointers while setting a career-high with 10 attempts. Cornelius Vines once again channeled the spirit of Craig Hodges with five 3-pointers—including one apiece from the left, center and right of the arc in the first half—on his way to 18 points. It’s the first time this season Vines has scored in double figures in consecutive games. In addition, Life with Corny has as many 3-pointers in the last two games (12) as he did in the preceding 10 combined.

“He’s rolling and we’re going to keep him rolling,” Pecora said. “He’s playing with good confidence. With the exception of one miss, they rattled in and missed. We’re real pleased with [how he’s] shooting the ball.”

The Dutchmen displayed impressive resiliency in answering every threat by the Blue Hens, who shot 50 percent in the second half and 44 percent overall—the best mark by a Dutchmen opponent during this seven-game run—and once again overcoming foul trouble in the front court. Freshman David Imes was out with the flu and unavailable to spell Miklos Szabo, Greg Washington and Halil Kanacevic, all of whom played much of the second half with at least three fouls but still managed to combine for 17 points on 4-of-7 shooting, 11 rebounds and two blocks in the final 20 minutes.

The one time Delaware pulled within six points in the second half (43-37 with 14:25 to play), Chaz Williams (who hit four of his final five shots after an 0-for-4 start and finished with nine points, seven rebounds and four assists) responded with a 3-pointer. The Blue Hens got as close as seven three more times, and every time the Dutchmen hit a basket on the next trip down the floor.

“We’re healthier, we’re more confident—I think we’ve really broken down the offense and simplified things, trimmed a lot of the fat off it,” Pecora said. “Some of the things we were doing we put by the wayside for now and we’re back to just featuring a few cuts against each team and really locking in and doing that what we think will work against whomever our opponent is. I think that simplifying the offense is giving them freedom—this stuff is coming naturally, there’s less for them to think about.”

The Dutchmen’s scorching play is giving plenty of people—not only inside the men’s basketball offices but also from Boston to Atlanta—a lot to think about. How much longer can this go? Can the Dutchmen, who have beaten just one winning team during this streak, make a statement in Boston next Tuesday against CAA co-leader Northeastern and enter the CAA Tournament as the team nobody wants to play?

“Us being able to fight back from 2-7 to 8-8 shows a great deal of resiliency,” Pecora said. “Now if we can finish it off and get a couple more wins and end up 10-8 in the conference, that would be a great accomplishment—as 9-9 would be.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Delaware, 2/16)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Cornelius Vines

1: Chaz Williams

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 54

Chaz Williams 27

Miklos Szabo 21

Halil Kanacevic 20

Nathaniel Lester 18

Cornelius Vines 14

Greg Washington 13

Yves Jules 1

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch athttp://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Hofstra 77, Delaware 67 (Or: For a split second, it felt the way it did back then)

This will probably come as no surprise to anyone, since I run a blog in which I pay homage to Hofstra’s original nickname, but I’ve long been an overly nostalgic fellow. In fact, I earned some immediate ridicule from my future Loyal Readers by toting with me to campus in 1993 multiple AS SEEN ON TV!!!! ‘80s compilation CDs.

Looking back, I can’t blame anyone for making fun of me. I mean, it was 1993. The world was just getting re-acquainted with Meat Loaf. How could we pine for a time that was barely in the rear view mirror yet one whose music and movies already felt incredibly dated?

And really, how can you be nostalgic for a simpler time when simple is all you’ve known? I was 19 years old, too young to be bitter and jaded no matter how many copies of Editor and Publisher I read. Nothing horrible had happened in my life to provide the defining line between the good ol’ days and everything thereafter.

You can’t be 19 years old and get the poignancy of Alex Van Halen’s words—how meaningful it is to experience a moment in time that is reminiscent of an earlier and better one, even if it is nowhere near the real thing and even if it serves as a reminder that a long-gone era can never be relived.

Now, of course, things are different, both individually and collectively. Not a day goes by without my mind wandering back to the simpler days of 1989, or even 2007.

There’s a lot of daydreaming, too, by those who root for Hofstra athletics, and even those who have been there long enough to recall the halcyon days of a decade or so ago, which is why the Flying Dutchmen’s 77-67 win over former America East archrival Delaware Saturday (talk about burying the lede…if you’ve read this far, thanks!) was such a riveting experience.

The Hofstra Arena crowd of 4,019 made the type of noise so often lacking at on-campus basketball games and enjoyed the roller coaster ride on an afternoon in which victory was absolutely essential, and yet at some points perilously close to slipping out of reach.

“It was great to see the place rocking a little bit,” Tom Pecora said. “It was a great crowd, 4,000 people. I thought it was awesome. And that’s what we need—we need that home court advantage. And I think it helped us get over the top.”

Just as they were at the height of the Hofstra-Delaware rivalry, the Dutchmen were sparked by a Big East-caliber point guard who landed at Hofstra because his measurables didn’t measure up to Big East standards as well as a big-time scorer from the boroughs.

To see and hear Chaz Williams cap a sensational performance (18 points, eight rebounds and six assists) by bellowing to the rafters so loudly he could be heard several rows up in the stands was to recall Speedy Claxton authoring a similar performance (24 points, eight assists, seven rebounds) before he pumped his fist and screamed in the waning seconds of the Dutchmen’s win over Delaware in the 2000 America East title game.

And Williams’ driving layup as the shot clock expired with 1:27 left—a basket that extended the Dutchmen’s lead to 68-62 and effectively finished the Blue Hens—was incredibly reminiscent of Jason Hernandez’ back-to-back jumpers that turned a four-point lead into an eight-point lead in the final three minutes of the 2001 title game rematch.

“It was similar to when—not on [that] level yet—but it was similar to when Speedy was here,” Pecora said. “I would go speak for Nike [about] attacking pressure defense. They’d say ‘Well, what did you do when you had Speedy Claxton?’ I said ‘We didn’t have to use any of this.’ And it’s getting like this with Chaz.”

Queens native Charles Jenkins, meanwhile, essayed the role of Brooklynite Norman Richardson almost to perfection by scoring 21 of his 27 points in the second half. He also had four boards and no assists. In the 2001 title game, Richardson scored 26 points—20 in the second half—while adding three boards and one assist.

“I want Charles Jenkins to get out of bed thinking about ‘How can I get a shot?’” Pecora said. “I want him to go to the bathroom saying he ain’t missing. It’s got to be all about him getting shots and its got to be all about Chaz knowing how to get him the shot.”

Of course, to truly compare Saturday to either of the America East championship games is foolish. The largest gathering at the Arena in almost three years (since a sellout crowd of 5,047 turned out for the Bracket Buster against Holy Cross) was there largely for Scout Day, and Hofstra will be lucky to turn 10 percent of the audience into repeat customers.

The Dutchmen and Blue Hens were fighting for seeding in the bottom half of the CAA, not the America East title. A defeat would have been almost unimaginably awful not because it would have cost the Dutchmen an NCAA Tournament berth but because to lose a game in which Hofstra ended up leading wire-to-wire would have been a crushing blow to a team whose confidence was almost shattered during a five-game losing streak as well as to a fan base searching for any reason to believe an unlikely Cinderella run can take place in March.

And never mind that the Dutchmen won despite a less-than-stellar performance, and that less-than-stellar was all that was needed against a Delaware program that has been down in the dumps for the better part of a decade.

Freshman Halil Kanacevic came off the bench to provide 16 points and six rebounds, which helped the Dutchmen overcome quiet nights from Miklos Szabo (two points and one rebound in 14 minutes), Cornelius Vines (scoreless in 33 minutes) and Greg Washington (who followed his epic game Wednesday with five points, six boards and three blocks in 35 minutes.)

The Dutchmen won even though they let the Blue Hens hang around and erase almost all of a 13-point second half lead. Delaware twice got within one point and trailed by three with 26 seconds left before the Dutchmen hit their final seven free throws.

“Are you going to beat the best teams in this league without having everybody playing at a high level? No, we’re not,” Pecora said. “So we’ve got to get more consistent and learn from this.”

But fretting over how much work the Dutchmen still have to do to and how far they are from their ultimate goal could wait. On Saturday night, all that mattered was it felt, for a little while, like it did back then. There was no anguishing over the end of football, no pondering the untenable situation CAA membership has become for Hofstra, no wishing the school had never left the America East. Even the final score inspired some nostalgia.

And in a sweet bit of serendipity, one of the players responsible for the fond memories of yesteryear was along for the trip back in time as well. Claxton, his NBA career all but over because of chronic knee woes, sat in his familiar courtside seat and watched Williams create the type of magic that he once spun so effortlessly, back before things got complicated.

“A good Saturday for college basketball” is what Pecora called it. Especially for those of us old enough to understand just how good Saturdays against Delaware used to be, and to need a reminder of it.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Delaware, 1/30)

3: Chaz Williams

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Halil Kanacevic

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 41

Chaz Williams 24

Halil Kanacevic 19

Nathaniel Lester 18

Miklos Szabo 15

Greg Washington 11

Cornelius Vines 9

Yves Jules 1

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch athttp://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Bits and Bytes: Working (and waiting) for the weekend

Even Canadian rockers Loverboy are keeping their fingers crossed the Flying Dutchmen get lucky this weekend!

The Flying Dutchmen have Kansas right where they want ‘em. Or, to be grammatically correct no matter how awkward it may sound, the Flying Dutchmen have Kansas right where they want it.

The top-ranked Jayhawks waxed Division II Pittsburg State, 103-45, in an exhibition game last night, thereby assuring they’ll be overconfident and arrogant come Friday night and not prepared at all for the full fury of the Flying Dutchmen.

Freshmen Thomas Robinson and Xavier Henry combined for 27 points and one technical (assessed to Robinson for hanging on the rim after a dunk), or four points and one technical more than senior stars Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins had. Dissension! The new kids are leading a palace revolt! Pretty soon the Jayhawks will be fighting amongst themselves instead of rumbling with the football team!

As you can tell, we’re a little worked up about the season in general and the imminent upset of the Jayhawks in particular. Stop back the next two days for plenty of preview material, including a Q&A with your good friend and mine Tom Pecora as well as a couple features. In the meantime, here are a few bits and bytes to tide you over.

—The football team will be relegated even further into the shadows this weekend, when it visits future East Coast Conference football rival Northeastern, a little more than 12 hours after the Dutchmen shock Hoops Nation.

Alas, it’s difficult not to wonder how meaningful Saturday’s game could have been for the Dutchmen, whose 28-24 loss to Delaware last Saturday marked the third time this season they turned the ball over on downs inside the 50-yard-line with a chance to tie or win the game in the final minute. The Dutchmen have lost to Delaware, New Hampshire and Maine by a combined 14 points. Wins in those three games would have the Dutchmen 7-2 and primed for a playoff berth, but instead Dave Cohen and his staff will have to hope the heartbreaking losses will provide fuel and a foundation for next season.

It’ll be interesting to see if Steve Probst gets more time at quarterback over the final two weeks. As I’ve written here before, I’m a fan of Cory Christopher, but now that the focus is entirely on 2010, it’s about time to see Probst behind center for all 60 minutes.

The very tentative plan is to attend the game Saturday, because my love of Boston is surpassed only by my desire to experience famously rustic Parsons Field for myself, but our schedule is subject to change if I spend all night celebrating the win over Kansas. I expect you to breathlessly stay tuned to this website and my Twitter until I make my decision!

—John Feinstein is many things I am not—including, apparently, crazy. The prolific author and Washington Post columnist appeared on NPR Monday (I, of course, was too busy listening to hair metal hits on satellite radio, so thanks to Brian Mull for the link) and said he expected the CAA to send four or five teams to the NCAA Tournament. If the CAA sends four or more teams to the NCAAs, I’ll stand on my head, a la Dick Vitale and Austin Peay in 1987. Even if all four or five of those teams are located in Virginia. Where is my conspiracy theory font?

—The disrespect for the Flying Dutchmen just keeps spreading. Collegeinsider.com released its first top 25 of the season, and not only aren’t the Dutchmen ranked, they weren’t even among the 55 teams receiving a vote. Seriously. Eighty teams got a vote and Hofstra didn’t. I’m going to channel and paraphrase Harry Doyle here: “One vote? We couldn’t get one goddamn vote?”

Four CAA schools are in the top 25, led by defending Collegeinsider.com Invitational champion Old Dominion, but at least Hofstra’s not alone in not receiving a vote: None of the other seven CAA schools did, either. That’s OK. The Dutchmen will be there next week!

—The NCAA is mad at Kentucky for hiring John Calipari, so for the second straight year, it’s probably going to suspend a Hofstra transfer for playing in professional games in his native land. Maybe Miklos Szabo—and Greg Washington, who also knows what it’s like to be at the mercy of the NCAA’s hilariously ineffective, inconsistent and unpredictable Clearinghouse—can give Brad Kelleher some tips on how to pass the time.

—Finally, I’ve updated the links on the right hand side of this page. You’ll notice (or maybe you won’t) no Newsday link. Apparently, there is no college basketball blog this year. Hey, that’s a good idea, let’s cut the news hole, double the price to $1, make our website free only to Cablevision subscribers (hooray monopolies!) and then not bother giving those folks anything extra to read online. Awesome. No wonder newspapers are so healthy. Little birdies also tell me they’ll provide Hofstra even less beat coverage than usual, which, you know, is great.

Anyway, check out the new alignment of sites covering Hofstra, the CAA and mid-majors, especially The Mid-Majority, which is so good I cannot do it justice in a piece like this. At some point soon I’m going to pen an ode to that place, because it is just freaking amazing, every single day. Also check out the self-explanatory Friends of Defiantly Dutch further down the page. And, of course, buy my book!

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Hofstra 69, Delaware 59 (Or: We’re streaking!)

In lieu of a terrible Presidents Day pun about Greg Washington, I continue with the Old School motif and offer you a picture of Sully Ray, who is trying to explain to his wife how he had to unwind from a day of Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond and celebrate the Flying Dutchmen's third straight win by going streaking behind Hofstra.

First things first: Do not attempt this at home. The wife and I had long planned to spend the weekend in Delaware (a sign you’ve married way up: your wife thinks two days in New-ARK centered around a two-hour basketball game is a great way to spend Valentine’s Day weekend), but Stuff kept Happening and it appeared as if we’d be home watching the game on TV.

Until 12:45 p.m., when I said screw it (or a similar two-word phrase) to Stuff Happening and decided we were going to the game. The wife, as she is wont to do, employed logic and said that’s impossible, it takes more than three hours to get down there and we’ll never make it. I said, much like a certain United States President, yes we can…with the caveat that if the Belt Parkway is a parking lot, we can always turn around.

Much heming and hawing followed until my wife walked into the living room sporting her 2001 America East tournament fleece. That’s her Golden Boy. She was done screwing around. It was time to go.

We left at 1:15. Two hours and 40 minutes of channeling Sammy Hagar circa 1984 later, we pulled into the Bob parking lot and had a panicked, horrified thought: What if they’re sold out?

They weren’t, but there was a guy in front of us channeling his Stewie Griffin and milking his purchase for all it was worth (for the love of God, guy, there were nearly 2,000 empty seats, you could have bought a ticket and sat just about anywhere you wanted) and ruining my plan to make it for opening tip. We asked for tickets behind the Hofstra bench, got Row D, figured that was pretty good and promptly learned it was a lot better than that.

Row D was actually three rows behind the Hofstra bench. Close enough to not only see Life With Corny spit into the wastebasket behind his chair, but for the wife to actually say “Eww. Gross.” Close enough to hear Charles Jenkins clap his hands at half-court after he hit a tie-breaking 3-pointer early in the second half. Close enough so that when Dane Johnson stood up, we couldn’t see a thing. (I’d hate to be that guy in a movie theatre. I think his new nickname is Down In Front) Close enough to not only read Tom Pecora’s lips, but actually hear every single word too. This just in: I think Quentin Tarantino would have enjoyed himself. (There’s absolutely no suitable-for-work scene of his to link, sorry) Or, as the wife said: “He’s more entertaining than I thought.”

All that and the Flying Dutchmen won their third in a row, 69-59. That’s right. Decided to go on the spur of the moment, made it there roughly on time, got great seats, Dutchmen win, post-game dinner at Cracker Barrel just inside the Jersey border, home by 11:30 to watch another crappy Saturday Night Live. Sometimes, life is like an episode of a 1980s TV show in which everything unfolds perfectly (except neither one of us was called out of the stands to play, maybe next time).

It wasn’t a thing of beauty—when is it?—but the victory Saturday was in some ways as encouraging as the win over Old Dominion last Tuesday. The Dutchmen didn’t lead wire to wire in this one—they trailed by seven early in the second half and led by only one before a 15-6 run over the final 3:14 made the final score look a lot less competitive than it was—and shot a miserable 2-for-17 over the final 10 minutes of the first half.

Yet even when the Dutchmen were misfiring—and they missed their first three shots from the field as well as their first two free throw attempts in the second half—there was an unusual calmness missing from other games in which the Dutchmen endured extended funks. It never felt, at least from three rows behind the visiting bench, that Hofstra was in danger of losing the game.

The easy explanation is it’s easy to be optimistic with the Dutchmen playing a sub-.500 team, but the Blue Hens have beaten three of the CAA’s top four teams at home. The truth is the Dutchmen are following the Pecora blueprint and playing better and with more confidence and cohesion in February (Hofstra is 35-10 in regular season games after Feb. 1 since the 2003-04 season) and utilizing the formula they’ll need to employ in order to make the CAA Tournament interesting.

Even when the Dutchmen struggle offensively, the defense is stingy enough to keep the game manageable. Delaware ended the first half on a 16-7 run but took just 10 shots in that span.

And lately, the Dutchmen have minimized their mistakes (they tied a season-low with 10 turnovers Saturday) and have been on the right side of the fine line between having a lot of scoring options and just enough guys to regularly rely upon. Jenkins and Nathaniel Lester have scored in double figures in each of the last three wins and have been joined by a different player in double digits each time—Arminas Urbutis against Towson, Darren Townes against Old Dominion and Greg Washington against Delaware.

Most importantly, a mix of sophomores and seniors have gelled and taken the pressure off the suddenly calm and steady Charles Jenkins. Sophomores Jenkins, Lester and Washington combined for 48 points Saturday and scored 35 of the Dutchmen’s 47 points in the second half, including the last 19.

Lester finished with 12 points and led the Dutchmen with nine boards, the team-best fifth time since Jan. 1 he’s led or shared the team lead in rebounding. The real revelation Saturday was Washington, who left me searching for appropriate President’s Day puns (all of which sucked and none of which will be foisted upon you) after he single-handedly sparked the late run that put the game away.

Washington, who had four fouls, re-entered the game with 3:34 left and the Dutchmen up one and scored the Dutchmen’s next three field goals—including two on short jumpers in the paint against Marc Egerson, who was also playing with four fouls and could do little to defend a player on whom he was giving up four inches—while also adding a steal that led to a Lester free throw.

Washington finished 5-of-6 from the field and drained three of the mid-range jumpers that used to make Pecora and the rest of us cringe. Not bad for 13 minutes.

Seniors Down In Front, Greg Johnson, Arminas Urbutis, Zygis Sestakos and Darren Townes combined for the other 21 points and generally played like Pecora has wanted them to play for weeks.

Down In Front, who seemed to be on the verge of irrelevancy, displayed some long-lost aggressiveness and fluidity down low in draining a pair of key hoops. Greg Johnson hit two early baskets and committed only one turnover in 25 minutes while Sestakos continued his resurgence by draining three 3-pointers, all of which put the Dutchmen ahead. Townes didn’t score and had as many fouls (three) as rebounds, but Urbutis contributed eight rebounds to offset a 1-of-7 night from the field.

Jenkins, meanwhile, capped off his best three-game stretch of the conference season by leading all players with 26 points and eight assists. He shot 9-of-18 overall and 5-of-7 in the second half, when he drained three buckets that either tied the game or put the Dutchmen ahead.

Jenkins has scored 65 points on 21-of-46 shooting in his last three games, during which he’s committed a Carlos Rivera-esque five turnovers in 92 minutes. If he keeps that up, and if he keeps getting a lot of help from a lot of different players, the Dutchmen will be one of the toughest outs in less than three weeks—even if the sheer number of tough outs ensures that multiple very good teams are going to go home after one or two games. More on that, sort of, in a bit.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com. And join the Defiantly Dutch group at Facebook today!

Hofstra 66, Delaware 61 (Or: Emotional Rescue)

Austin Powers raises a glass to the Flying Dutchmen, even if their win wasn't quite as beautiful as Vanessa Kensington.

A starving man will eat anything and think it’s the greatest thing he’s ever consumed. Liverwurst, gruel, even a Hofstra Burger that’s been sitting under those heat lamps since the library only had 500,000 volumes.

It won’t take until a little later, when his stomach is full and maybe barking a little bit, that he’ll realize that liverwurst or gruel or Hofstra Burger from 1973 was actually not nearly as good as he thought it was. But no-longer-starving man is still grateful for the food, since, you know, eating something that Emeril or even Rachael Ray (don’t worry, I resisted the urge to post a not suitable for work picture…barely) would scoff at is still better than going hungry.

I mention this not because I’m hungry (though my wife made a great pot roast in the slow cooker) but because at around 9 p.m. last night, the Flying Dutchmen’s 66-61 win over Delaware (a game covered by, be still my beating heart, at least four daily newspapers—the Daily News, the Post and the News-Journal in Delaware, link to Newsday story further below) was the greatest tonic ever for a team starving for a win after dropping two straight conference games and four of five contests overall.

Better than the two America East championship game victories over the Blue Hens. Better than the NIT win over St. Joseph’s. Better than beating St. John’s for the first time (and the second time, and the third time, and the fourth time, too).

Greg Johnson was outstanding at the point, racking up seven assists and no turnovers (that’s a ratio of infinity, you know). Slumping Charles Jenkins scored 18 points. Nathaniel Lester, who for so long has seemed to be the very definition of a tweener—just a little too big and unpredictable on offense to be a guard, not big enough or forceful enough down low to be a small forward—led the Dutchmen with eight rebounds, including a pure effort grab that led to a key late lay-up by Cornelius Vines. It’s the second time in four games Lester has collected eight boards.

The Dutchmen looked like a complete team during a 15-2 run that turned a 22-17 deficit into a 32-24 halftime lead. They hit five of 10 shots and outrebounded the Blue Hens 9-5 during the stretch.

A team whose performance from the free throw line is not for the faint of heart was, shockingly, almost perfect—24-of-26, including 20-of-20 in the second half. That’s got to be the Dutchmen’s best performance from the line since at least 1956 (give or take a couple decades, of course).

Two days after Tom Pecora had to take some air out of the tires, Vines played with his familiar swagger as well as the good kind of emotion in scoring a game- and career-high 23 points. He shot and missed at will to open the second half (0-for-6) but hit three of his last four shots, including a pair of rare lay-ups. Vines set a season-high by attempting 11 shots inside of the 3-point line, a pretty notable shift for a guy who took two or fewer shots from inside the arc seven times in his first 14 games.

After hitting the second lay-up to extend the Flying Dutchmen’s lead to 58-54, Vines ran down the court with his arms in the air, extorting a predictably small Intersession crowd to make the type of noise that filled the Arena with an atypical roar—for a few seconds, at least.

The Dutchmen seemed to follow Vines’ lead. Dane Johnson did the arms thing when he came off the court after he drew a charge that negated a potential game-tying basket by the Blue Hens. And the bench—full of downcast, morose expressions most of the last five games—was so lively in the final minutes that Pecora had to threaten to turn the bench around and drive back home.

In retrospect, of course, the win wasn’t THAT good. As my wife sang to the tune of “We Are The Champions”: “No time for Blue Hens, because we are marginally better than you!”

The issues that have dogged Hofstra since mid-December haven’t been solved. The Dutchmen endured another terrible game from the field in shooting just 29.7 percent (19-of-64), their second-worst performance of the season. The Dutchmen were fortunate that Delaware shot just 30.5 percent (18-of-59) and that Marc Egerson, Jawan Carter and Alphonso Dawson, who averaged a combined 49.6 points entering the game, were a combined 6-of-37.

Jenkins led the way again—so to speak—for the cold-shooting Dutchmen by making just four of his season-high 24 shots, many of which barely grazed the rim. On the bright side, Jenkins at least got his shots Wednesday—he set a season-low in shots in each of the previous two games—and he displayed some of his Loren Stokes-like ability to fill up the boxscore even when he’s not filling the basket.

Jenkins was 10-of-10 from the free throw line, tied a season-high with a team-best three steals and committed just two turnovers after turning the ball over 15 times in his previous three games. And as the lede to this Newsday story indicates, at least Jenkins is smiling about his struggles instead of torturing himself (more on the latter in a bit).

After opening that eight-point halftime lead, the Dutchmen let Delaware hang around and eventually take the lead. The game was a one-possession nail-biter for most of the final five minutes before Monte Ross did his best Bruiser Flint imitation and got T’d up with seven seconds left.

And the depth that appeared so promising in November continues to be a mirage. Only seven players saw at least 12 minutes of playing time and Miklos Szabo, Darren Townes and Tony Dennison—who were expected to be regular starters—played a combined 19 minutes.

So it wasn’t a thing of beauty. But the rebuilding of the overall psyche couldn’t begin until the Dutchmen got a win, no matter how ugly and lacking in style points it was. And 2-2 in the CAA going into VCU looks a whole lot better than 1-3, which would have bordered on disastrous given the hot start enjoyed by the Dutchmen and the resultant raised expectations.

Jenkins, the symbol of the Dutchmen’s recent struggles, also summarized the relief of Dutch Nation. Seconds after the final buzzer, Jenkins—who spent most of the previous 40 minutes expressing his frustration by banging his right hand on the floor or on the padding attached to the basket—kneeled down at midcourt and gently tapped the “H” twice.

Hunger satiated. Mojo stirring. Bigger and more satisfying feasts, hopefully, to come.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.