Hofstra 93, UNC Wilmington 64 (Or: A little touchup and a little paint…)

Only 11 more chances to figure out the theme of the post-game recaps, Loyal Reader Missy, err, everyone!

Referee Sean Casady sidled up to Mo Cassara as the Flying Dutchmen produced their most dominant CAA victory in more than two years and asked the question on the minds of most of the 3,017 fans at Hofstra Arena.

“He said ‘Where has this been all year?’” Cassara said after the Dutchmen routed UNC Wilmington, 93-64, in the regular season finale Saturday.

Cassara and his players have believed they were capable of a performance like this throughout an exasperating, luckless season in which the effort never waned even as the Dutchmen suffered narrow loss after narrow loss. It all finally came together in a rollicking Senior Day victory fueled by the three departing Dutchmen.

CAA scoring champion Mike Moore had 30 points and Nathaniel Lester remained among the top 10 scorers in the league with 20 points to lead five Dutchmen in double figures. But the most impressive performance was authored by the third senior, Dwan McMillan, who racked up an incredible 15 assists—the most in the CAA this season and one shy of the Hofstra single-game record, set way back by Robbie Weingard in the 1983-84 season—to surge past VCU’s Darius Theus and win the CAA’s assist title.

“We had as many close games as anybody in the league, if not in the country this year, [and] didn’t come out on the right end of a lot of them,” Cassara said. “But tonight I thought our energy was great, our effort was great and our attitude was great. And that’s a credit to these three guys. Their stats throughout the course of the game were really incredible.”

As a team, the Dutchmen put up some pretty incredible—and borderline historical—stats. The Dutchmen tied a team record, set way back in the 1988-89 season, with 25 assists. The Dutchmen shot 56.6 percent, their best effort since the season opener against Long Island, and drained a season-high 12 3-pointers. Defensively, the Dutchmen enjoyed a 39-possession stretch in which they didn’t allow UNC Wilmington to score on consecutive trips up the floor.

The Dutchmen led by as many as 37 with a little more than two minutes to play prior to a game-ending 13-4 run by the Seahawks and were on pace for their first 100-point effort against a Division I opponent in almost exactly 20 years until Cassara took the air out of the ball down the stretch(cough, would never happen if Jaime Larranaga coached here, cough cough).

The 29-point victory was still the program’s biggest margin of victory over a Division I opponent since a 93-54 win over UNC Wilmington Jan. 27, 2010, the game that infamously got Benny Moss Benny Mossed. And the lopsided win cut the Dutchmen’s overall point differential this season by more than half (from 54 points to 25 points) and made them just one of two CAA teams to win at least two games by 25 points this season.

“We were clicking on the offensive end and defensive end,” Lester said. “Not a bad time to start.”

We won’t know until late Friday night whether the win was the start of something big—or at least a run to Sunday or Monday in the CAA Tournament—or merely a fluke outburst against the worst defensive team in the CAA. But the Dutchmen certainly displayed some elements of a winning team against the Seahawks.

The Dutchmen got off to their usual fast start (taking a 9-0 lead, during which UNC Wilmington coach Buzz Peterson subbed out his entire starting lineup) before, as usual, quickly allowing the opponent back into the contest. But after falling behind 14-11, the Dutchmen outscored the Seahawks 34-11 to end the first half and remained ruthless and unrelenting in the second half.

The Dutchmen improved to 8-9 when three or more players score in double digits (Stevie Mejia, Stephen Nwaukoni and Shemiye McLendon all scored 10 points each). The dual point guard combination of McMillan and Mejia continued to create opportunities on both ends of the floor: In addition to combining for 19 assists, they sparked a defense that recorded eight steals (the 10th time in 11 games they’ve had at least seven thefts) and forced more turnovers than the Dutchmen committed for the 10th straight game.

“I think this small lineup has helped us a lot,” Cassara said. “I think the pressure we’ve been able to put [on teams], like last Saturday on Siena and for the most part William & Mary until the very end of the game and then today, we’ve been able to wear some teams down. So we have to try to continue to do that.”

Nwaukoni had a double-double (10 points and 10 rebounds) and mostly neutralized UNC Wilmington big man Keith Rendleman. Moussa Kone fouled out in just 17 minutes of play, but hit both of his field goal attempts, including a sweet 10-foot bank shot in the first half, as well as both of his free throws. He’s 5-for-5 from the field in the last two games and 4-of-5 from the free throw line in the last four games after beginning the season by hitting just 10 of his first 28 attempts.

“I thought [Nwaukoni] did a great job defensively,” Cassara said. “I think you saw his strength. Rendleman is a terrific player and our whole team did a great job on him, doubling him in the post and frustrating him.”

The odds are this frustrating season for the Dutchmen won’t have a Hollywood ending (as we’ll get into all week long with the annual Just The Facts, coming soon to a screen near you!) and that extending the program’s Senior Day winning streak to 16 games will stand as the highlight of the most challenging campaign in 17 years. But the rout at least created some momentum for the Dutchmen heading into Friday night’s opening round game against Georgia State and provided a glimpse at what this team can do when things are clicking.

“Better late than never—it’s a start,” Moore said. “This gives us a lot of momentum going in and a lot of confidence for the guys whose shots haven’t been falling.”

“We’ve really been having great practices the last two weeks,” McMillan said. “Some of the games we haven’t closed out, but I think we can make some noise.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. UNC Wilmington, 2/25)

3: Dwan McMillan

2: Mike Moore

1: Nathaniel Lester

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 64

Nathaniel Lester 45

Dwan McMillan 20

Stevie Mejia 15

David Imes 14

Stephen Nwaukoni 10

Shemiye McLendon 9

Moussa Kone 6

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

College of Bill Lawrence 75, Hofstra 71 (Or: Their overkill)

Ghosts reappear and a season fades away...

It’s gotten to the point for the Flying Dutchmen where every loss is a microcosm of a lost season. Loss no. 21, a 75-71 defeat at the hands of the College of Bill Lawrence, contained elements omnipresent in so many of its 20 predecessors.

The margin of defeat was certainly familiar: The Dutchmen are now 2-8 in games decided by six points or less or in overtime, their most losses in such games since 2007-08 (the last time the Dutchmen endured a sub-.500 season) and the program’s worst winning percentage in these contests since the 1992-93 team went 1-5.

Once again, the Dutchmen did a lot of good things, but once again, their mistakes and missteps once again proved costly. The Dutchmen displayed their trademark resiliency in scoring 11 straight points after falling behind 7-0 and outscoring William & Mary 27-10 in the eight minutes following the Tribe’s hot start. In the second half, the Dutchmen fell behind by as many as seven and closed within at least three points a dozen times but could never take the lead.

Mike Moore all but locked up the CAA scoring title by collecting a game-high 25 points—including a beauty of a bank shot from just inside the half-court line at the halftime buzzer, that’s right, the Dutchmen are now 0-2 in games with halftime half-court buzzer beaters—and his efficiency score of 23 was by far the best of any Hofstra player, but he didn’t score from the field after opening the second half with a layup and missed his last five shots.

Moore and Nathaniel Lester (18 points and a game-high eight rebounds) were again a solid 1-2 combination, but the Dutchmen had just two players in double figures for the seventh time in the last 10 games. Moore, Lester and Moussa Kone (six points on 3-of-3 shooting and five rebounds, including four in a five-minute span late in the second half) were 17-of-37 from the field while the rest of their teammates were 7-of-23. Stevie Mejia, who has been emerging as that reliable third scoring option, picked up nine points, five of which came in a 53-second span before the first media timeout of the first half, and finished just 2-of-9 from the field.

The Dutchmen’s struggles on offense negated their gritty effort on defense in the final minutes. While many of their early narrow losses were marked by an inability to buy a stop on defense in the waning minutes, the Dutchmen limited the Fighting Lawrences to just one field goal on five attempts in the final five minutes Wednesday.

But the Dutchmen were scoreless from the field following a layup by Lester with 4:28 to play and missed five shots with William & Mary clinging to a 71-69 lead. Finally, the Dutchmen had a costly defensive breakdown and surrendered the back-breaking 3-pointer by a wide-open Brandon Britt with 18 seconds left that accounted for the game’s final points.

Overall, the Dutchmen scored on just one of eight possessions in the second half in which they had a chance to tie or take the lead, and that one basket was the afore-mentioned layup by Lester that came with the Dutchmen down three.

Britt’s basket was doubly frustrating because it was another example of what the Dutchmen have largely lacked this season: Someone bailing out a struggling star. Britt’s shot ensured Quinn McDowell, who led the CAA in free throw shooting percentage last season, wouldn’t wear the goat horns after missing three of four free throw attempts in the final two minutes. What if someone had done that for Moore when he missed those two free throws with the chance to take the lead against Delaware seven weeks earlier?

In the end, the defeat served as another reminder of just how difficult it is for the Dutchmen to create even the tiniest bit of momentum. A win would have been the 10th of the season for the Dutchmen and put them in position to earn the 10th seed. That’s no great shakes for a program that has recorded double-digit wins in each of the last 15 seasons and finished in the bottom half of the CAA just twice since the league expanded to 12 teams in 2005-06, but 10 wins and a 10 seed would certainly be more aesthetically pleasing than being stuck on nine wins and being locked into the 11th seed heading into Senior Day.

Instead, the lone solace the Dutchmen could take from Wednesday was knowing Towson locked up last place by losing to Delaware. It’s not much. But on an evening that so accurately summarized a lost season, it’ll have to do.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. College of Bill Lawrence, 2/22)

3: Mike Moore

2: Nathaniel Lester

1: Moussa Kone

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 62

Nathaniel Lester 44

Dwan McMillan 17

Stevie Mejia 15

David Imes 14

Stephen Nwaukoni 10

Shemiye McLendon 9

Moussa Kone 6

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

Drexel 78, Hofstra 67 (Or: Who would have thought they’d end up this way, getting so close, so far away)

Philadelphia's finest musical export summed up the 2011-12 Flying Dutchmen way back during my senior year of high school, when me and Nathaniel Lester formed a dynamic duo in pickup basketball!

Mike Moore did a fine job of spelling out the absurdity of a double-digit loss to Georgia State nine days ago, when the Panthers routed the Flying Dutchmen even tough the Dutchmen had as many assists and steals, two fewer rebounds and seven fewer turnovers than the victors.

Even in this ridiculous Dutchmen season, that seemed to be bottom, at least in terms of head-scratching losses that simply don’t add up on paper. But as usual, we were wrong. Very, very wrong.

The Dutchmen managed to never lead in a 78-67 loss to Drexel at the cozy DAC in Philadelphia Saturday even though they forced 11 more turnovers (18) than they committed (seven). It was just the sixth time since joining the CAA that Hofstra has had a turnover ratio of plus-10 and the first time the Dutchmen have lost such a game. Their average margin of victory in the first five such instances: 15 points.

“If I could cover the numbers up and say, hey, we got 19 offensive rebounds and only turned it over seven times and they turned it over 18 times, I’d probably sit here and tell you we probably would have won the game,” Cassara said.

So how did THIS—so close, so far away—happen again? Well, for one thing, the Dutchmen had so many offensive rebounds because they missed 43 of their 64 shots. And while Moore, Nathaniel Lester, Stephen Nwaukoni and Shemiye McLendon combined to shoot a respectable 20-of-46 from the field, the rest of the team was a gasp-worthy 1-of-18.

“Our issue just continues to be we weren’t able to make enough baskets to win,” Cassara said. “We had a lot of great opportunities around the basket tonight and we weren’t able to execute.”

Drexel, on the other hand, executed. Over and over and over again. The Dragons shot a blistering 59.6 percent, the highest a CAA opponent has ever shot against the Dutchmen, per EvanJ at the CAA Zone. Drexel’s three double-digit scorers—Chris Fouch, Frantz Massenat and Damian Lee—were a silly 22-of-29 from the field. Fouch lived up to his “F-Bomb” nickname by hitting three free throws less than three minutes into the second half to start the Dragons’ decisive 25-8 run and by draining his first six 3-point attempts of the second half.

Only these Dutchmen—who have as many non-conference wins over opponents in the top 100 as they do CAA wins—could produce such diametrically opposite historic efforts in the same game.

“I told the team: It’s a mental mistake every game,” Cassara said. “It’s a little mental breakdown. And I think that just comes from fatigue and just comes from we don’t have enough mental toughness to say ‘Hey, I’m not going to foul a jump shooter’ [or] ‘Hey, I’m not going to go underneath the screen’ or ‘Hey, I’m going to cut a little harder on offense.’ And part of that, to me, is from fatigue.”

Yet despite the almost uninterrupted spate of losing and an undermanned roster (which got even lighter when David Imes sat out the second half with a groin injury that has him very questionable at best for this week), the Dutchmen continued to exhibit an admirable amount of hustle and effort. They forced a seemingly unprecedented seven held balls in the first half, during which they fell behind by 10 less than six minutes in yet closed the gap to two at the under-4 timeout.

The Dutchmen opened the second half by outscoring the Dragons 10-4 to pull within two points—and missed two chances to tie the game a bit more than two minutes into the half—and went on a 20-9 run to pull within eight points at the final media timeout.

“I thought our effort and our intensity was really, really solid,” Cassara said. “Proud of our guys. We continue to play hard. We just haven’t been able to make enough winning plays to beat a team like Drexel, especially down here at Drexel.”

Nobody played harder than Lester, who continued to produce a sensational finish to what was already a very solid senior season by scoring a game-high 27 points—including 22 in the second half—to go along with a team-high eight rebounds, including seven on the offensive end. Effort has never been an issue for Lester, but he is embodying the senior playing with more passion than ever in February, putting teammates on his back and doing all he can to will a flawed team to extend his career just a little bit longer.

“Nat plays hard—he plays hard,” Cassara said. “He plays hard and he’s given us all he’s got. He continues to play really hard and give us a lot of energy.”

There were some other notable individual efforts by Dutchmen, many of which were alternately—and appropriately—impressive and cringe-worthy. The best overall performance, other than Lester, came from Nwaukoni, who was 4-of-6 from the field in scoring eight points for the second straight game. The Dutchmen will need him to continue finding his early January form with Imes banged up.

Dwan McMillan fashioned a magnificent assist-to-turnover ratio of 6:1, but was 0-for-4 from the field. Moore had 18 points and became only the second player in school history to score 1,000 points in two seasons after transferring to Hofstra, but lapsed into inconsistency and sat for almost five minutes during Drexel’s big second half run.

And Stevie Mejia had five steals, and nearly had a couple more that he couldn’t quite corral, but was 0-for-8 from the field three days after he was 5-of-11 against George Mason.

“Wayne Morgan said to me walking down the tunnel at halftime ‘That’s the guy that you told me could really guard the ball that we’ve been waiting to see,’” Cassara said. “He’s starting to come along. That’s a positive note. Got to keep trying to build on the positives. We’ve got three of our next four games at home.”

There aren’t too many of those on the scoreboard or in the standings—the last time the Dutchmen were 2-13 in conference play, the 13th loss was a season-ender in the 1988 East Coast Conference tournament—and even the schedule that once seemed to lighten up in mid-February has turned difficult.

Delaware, which started this Dutchmen funk with a one-point win in New-ARK Jan. 4, visits Wednesday in the midst of a four-game winning streak that has made the Blue Hens the hottest team outside of the top four. Then there’s the too-meaningless-for-words “Bracket Buster” against Siena Saturday, followed by a trip to William & Mary—which scorched Northeastern Saturday to break a 10th-place tie with the Dutchmen—and the Senior Day finale against UNC Wilmington.

But Cassara will work as hard leading into games as the Dutchmen work during them, hoping to fix whatever ails the Dutchmen and get to the point where luck finally turns their way, the shots start falling, the math finally works in their favor and so close is no longer so far away.

“I’ve been on some teams that [didn’t] have winning records and some of those teams didn’t play hard this time of year,” Cassara said. “That team out there played hard today. We played hard. We just aren’t able to make enough winning plays to win a game like that on the road yet. So we have to keep trying to look at some of the things that [are] prohibiting us from doing that and stay positive. We head home for three of our next four and we’re going to go back to practice [Sunday] and try to get better Sunday and Monday and play Delaware on Tuesday.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Drexel, 2/11)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Stephen Nwaukoni

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 56

Nathaniel Lester 41

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 14

Stephen Nwaukoni 10

Stevie Mejia 9

Shemiye McLendon 9

Moussa Kone 3

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

George Mason 72, Hofstra 62 (Or: All around the CAA, same song)

Sing it Humpty! (No not the guy from James Madison)

Sorry for the delay here. Buried in work during the latter part of the week and whatever free time I had was spent on a longer-term project, the results of which you will hopefully see here in the next couple weeks. Intrigued? Good! Anyway the Dutchmen tip off against Drexel in a little more than four hours so here’s a quick buffet of thoughts from the 72-62 loss to George Mason (i.e. The Bad Guys):

1.) It’s just the same ol’ situation for the Flying Dutchmen, who took a 56-54 lead on Nathaniel Lester’s old-fashioned 3-point play with 5:52 left and appeared to have all the momentum after Mike Morrison (snicker snicker snort snort) picked up a technical foul for mouthing off (as always, you can take the Larranaga out of Fairfax, but not the Larranaga out of his players). But yet another awful #CAAHoops officiating crew inexplicably handed out off-setting technicals, with Stevie Mejia picking one up as well, and George Mason outscored the Dutchmen 18-6 the rest of the way.

Sherrod Wright, whose traditional (yay for synonyms!) 3-point play in Hempstead gave the Patriots the lead for good with less than two minutes to play two weeks earlier, once again delivered the dagger with a 3-pointer immediately after Lester gave the Dutchmen the lead. It was yet another example of the Dutchmen running out of gas at the end of an otherwise fine defensive performance: While the Dutchmen held the Patriots scoreless from the field during the last 10 possessions of the first half, Mason scored on nine of its last 11 second half possessions. Well, technically it was nine of 12, but with Larranaga gone, Ryan Pearson didn’t call timeout after stealing the ball at midcourt in the waning seconds so that he could set up another 3-pointer. Progress!

2.) This marks the sixth time in CAA play the Dutchmen have lost a game in which they led or were tied with less than eight minutes to go. Less painful than leading Mason, James Madison and Northeastern with less than two minutes to play at home, perhaps, and certainly less painful than squandering a chance to take the lead against Delaware with free throws in the final 20 seconds in Newark, but still, in a season filled with near-misses, leading one of the CAA’s tri-leaders in the final six minutes on the road stung.

3.) Like the other near-misses, there were some reasons for optimism to be found in the defeat. In addition to the usual resiliency displayed by the Dutchmen, Stevie Mejia (11 points on 5-of-11 shooting) had perhaps his best and most inspired game of the year as the Dutchmen finally had somebody other than Lester and Mike Moore to shoulder some of the offensive load. Mejia played his most minutes (27) since Nov. 25 and scored his most points since Nov. 26, which, not coincidentally, were the two games just before he suffered that lingering hamstring injury against Boston University. Lester (14 points) scored in double figures for the 22nd time this year, matching his career total entering the season. Stephen Nwaukoni (eight points, eight rebounds and three steals) snapped out of his recent slump as well by scoring his most points since Jan. 11 and pulling down his most boards since Jan. 14. And the Dutchmen were an impressive 19-of-21 from the free throw line.

4.) But all but two of Nwaukoni’s points came from the free throw line as he and fellow starters David Imes and Dwan McMillan combined to shoot just 4-of-16 from the field. Imes played just 18 minutes, only the second time this year he’s failed to play at least 20 minutes, and made two or fewer field goals for the third straight game. McMillan had five assists but was just 1-of-7 from the field and is 4-of-25 from the field in the last six games. And Mejia accounted for all but two of the Dutchmen’s bench points while Mason’s depth (32 bench points) once again wore down the Dutchmen.

5.) And while Moore scored a game-high 18 points, he scored his final points with 9:44 left and took his last field goal attempt with 10:54 to go. The Dutchmen scored on just three of their final nine possessions following Lester’s go-ahead points. Moore needs to be more involved late and Imes, in particular, has to get untracked in order for the Dutchmen to have any hope of ending their string of gut-wrenching conference losses and to construct a bit of a run in the CAA Tournament three weeks from now.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. George Mason, 2/8)

3: Stevie Mejia

2: Mike Moore

1: Nathaniel Lester

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 55

Nathaniel Lester 38

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 14

Stevie Mejia 9

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Moussa Kone 3

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

Georgia State 59, Hofstra 43 (Or: All they want is some remedy)

The second-best Georgia band to have a top-two album in 1992 ponders the fate of the 2011-12 Flying Dutchmen!

After 17 defeats, the Flying Dutchmen are running out of different verbiage to explain the same thing. So on Saturday, Mike Moore just stated the obvious.

“I look at these stats and nothing really stands out,” Moore said after the Dutchmen fell to Georgia State, 59-43, in a game that was both closer than it looked and exactly as lopsided as it looked, all at the same time. “We played them pretty even: Assists, steals, turnovers. They had 17 [turnovers], we only had 10. The only thing is the point category. We’re not scoring. And that’s the problem.

“I feel like we’re matched up just as well as they were, with everything top to bottom except the point category. And that’s what wins games at the end of the day.”

And at the end of Saturday the Dutchmen were 2-11 and still tied for 10th place in the CAA despite, as Moore noted, playing Georgia State to a tie in assists (14) and steals (seven). But while Moore and Nathaniel Lester combined for 27 points, only two fewer than Georgia State’s top-scoring combination of Devonta White and Ali Jihad, the Panthers had two more players in double figures while the only additional Dutchmen player to even get halfway to 10 points was Moussa Kone.

The Dutchmen had four fewer field goals (17) than Georgia State on 17 more shots (58). Furthermore, while Moore and Lester were 11-of-31 from the field, the rest of their teammates were 6-for-27 against Georgia State’s frantic and varied mix of defensive alignments. The Dutchmen were just 3-of-22 from 3-point land and 6-of-12 from the free throw line.

“Tough to win any game at home this time of year against a team in the top part of the league when we shoot 3-of-22 and 6-of-12,” Mo Cassara said. “It’s one of those days the ball didn’t go in the basket.”

Of course, the Dutchmen have had a lot of those days since CAA play began. While the Dutchmen are a middle-of-the-pack team scoring overall among CAA teams (seventh at 64.4 points per game), they have been ice cold for most of the conference season. The Dutchmen are ninth in scoring in CAA play (60.0 ppg), 11th in field goal percentage (39 percent) and last in 3-point field goal percentage (26 percent).

With Moore and Lester, the Dutchmen have as good a 1-2 combination as anyone in the league. Only two other teams (James Madison and UNC Wilmington) have two players in the top 10 in scoring overall and only James Madison has two players in the top 10 in scoring in CAA games.

But the Dutchmen have had just two players in double figures in seven of the last eight games and Moore and Lester have been those two six times. The only time in this stretch in which the Dutchmen had three players score at least 10 points was the win against James Madison.

The Dutchmen’s other three starters—David Imes, Stephen Nwaukoni and Dwan McMillan—were all 3-of-12 from the field, with one field goal apiece, for the second straight game. And in their last two games, the Dutchmen’s third-leading scorer is walk-on Matt Grogan (nine points).

Yet as frigid as the Dutchmen were Saturday, they were, as they have been in just about every CAA games this season, one basket away from making things very interesting. Georgia State raced out to a 19-point lead late in the first half—the second time in as many games a Ron Hunter-coached team has scorched the Dutchmen and led by 19 points in the first half, hello 2010 CBI—but the Dutchmen crawled back within seven midway through the second half.

Over the next three scoreless minutes, the Dutchmen missed three shots to pull within four or five. On the last miss, Stevie Mejia missed a fast break layup and Rashaad Richardson drained a 3-pointer at the other end to begin a game-ending 13-4 “run” by the Panthers, whose lead never again slipped into single digits.

“I thought we had a pretty positive comeback,” Cassara said. “I think we had a chance to cut the game to five with several minutes to go. We cut the game to five, set our defense, I think the whole thing changes. The pressure goes back to their bench.

“But, again, it’s kind of been the story of our season that way. It becomes a very fine line and one or two possessions really dictates what happens to us.”

Cassara could take solace in the resiliency the Dutchmen displayed during the comeback as well as the gritty efforts of both Lester and Moore, each of whom played with a passion befitting two seniors in the final month of their collegiate careers.

Despite taking a blow to the face in the first half, Lester willed his way to another double-double with 14 points and a game-high 10 rebounds. Moore overcame a slow start—he didn’t score his first basket until the final minute of the first half—to finish with 13 points, including 11 of the Dutchmen’s first 15 in the second half, and had three assists, including a nifty dish to Kone for a layup that pulled the Dutchmen within 10 points for the first time in the second half.

“Personally, I want to go out winning,” Moore said. “I was hoping that we could come out and win this game. But the ball didn’t bounce our way going in the hoop.”

And while Kone (2-of-2 from the field, two blocks, two steals in 21 minutes) managed to crack a Georgia State interior that blocked eight shots, including six by Eric Buckner, and was otherwise unyielding against the Dutchmen.

“I thought Moussa did a terrific job for us,” Cassara said. “He was very active. Even Mike, coming out of one of the timeouts, said ‘Let’s get Moussa in there’ because he was really active on defense. And I thought he was active on offense as well.”

In the end, though, the result was familiar as the Dutchmen’s imperfections proved too much to overcome. “Georgia State [is] a very good team,” Cassara said. “To beat a good team. We have to be great right now. And that’s what we’re going to keep striving for.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Georgia State, 2/4)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Mike Moore

1: Moussa Kone

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 53

Nathaniel Lester 37

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 14

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 6

Moussa Kone 3

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

In which I once again implore you to support a Dutchmen team that deserves it, and ask you to bring 10 friends to the game tomorrow

C'mon Simone get everyone to Hofstra again! You'll be home in plenty of time to watch Ferris' commercial during the Super Bowl!

Just before the first game of the 2010-11 season, I implored Flying Dutchmen fans to follow Mo Cassara’s advice and invite 10 friends to a Hofstra game because Cassara’s first Dutchmen squad was a captivating team, filled with potential, intriguing storylines and a future NBA player, that needed and deserved support from the locals.

For the first time in my life, I was right AND people listened to me (I’m usually just right). Charles Jenkins defied description, the Dutchmen were quite good (they finished tied for second in the CAA) and people showed up in droves, or at least droves by Hofstra standards. Proving once again that Long Island does a fine job of front-running, the Dutchmen performed in front of two sellout crowds and saw their average attendance rise by almost 400 fans per game.

As tends to be the case, though, once the gate attraction graduated and the program endured a year after slump, the fans decided to stay at home and watch, umm, whatever is on TV Saturdays at 4 pm and midweek nights at 7 pm. Jenkins is playing for the Golden State Warriors, the Dutchmen are 8-16 and 2-10 in the CAA and the average attendance in 13 games at Hofstra Arena is 2,320—a decline of more than 700 fans from a year ago.

Beginning tomorrow, the Dutchmen will be home three of the next four Saturdays, which should provide a bit of a boost to the year-end numbers, but let’s face it, I’ve seen this movie before and I know how it ends: With acres of empty seats watching a sub-.500 team.

Which is a shame, because while the Dutchmen are stumbling this year, they are, in a way, even more compelling and deserving of support than a year ago. As you no doubt know—and once again, I have slipped into preaching-to-the-choir mode, because if you are reading this, you not only know how the Dutchmen are doing this year but the gut-wrenching fashion in which they got to this point, just bear with me, I am rambling here—the Dutchmen have patented the near-miss with seven losses by six points or less, including four in which the winning points were scored in the final 20 seconds, and 12 losses by 10 points or less. Despite losing twice as much as they’ve won, the Dutchmen’s net point differential is a mere negative-11.

The Dutchmen were 0-7 against the top five teams in the CAA last month but led Old Dominion by 13 points in the first half in Norfolk, played VCU to a dead heat in Richmond for a little more than a half, raced out to 9-0 leads at home against both Northeastern and George Mason, jumped out to a 6-0 lead against Drexel at home and had a chance to tie the score or take the lead in the final 20 seconds at home against Northeastern, Drexel and George Mason.

Of course, as the record indicates, this is an imperfect bunch—not imperfect in the way the rest of us are imperfect basketball players, but imperfect in that, for whatever reason, they have tiny flaws that have been magnified in a league in which the difference between winning and losing is microscopic.

Mike Moore is prone to getting frustrated and forcing ill-advised shots when he’s either draped or not getting shots. Nathaniel Lester can be either a bit too aggressive (as when he tried forcing a foul along the baseline and instead turned the ball over in the waning seconds of the first game against Northeastern and kicked a ball away on a fast break in Boston last weekend) or not aggressive enough, as when he waits a split-second too long to go back up with the bal under the basket.

Dwan McMillan, who is shooting 35 percent from the field and 63 percent from the foul line while fashioning a 1.4 assist-to-turnover ratio in CAA play, is probably a bit stretched as the starting point guard. Stevie Mejia was supposed to be the starter, but a lingering hamstring injury has hampered him physically and mentally.

David Imes has shot 50 percent or better in 12 games—and 33 percent or less in 10 games. Sixth man Shemiye McLendon is now the eighth man, thanks largely to a suddenly flat shot and a protracted slump in which he’s made just four of 24 3-pointers in his last nine games. Big men Stephen Nwaukoni and Moussa Kone are very raw. Bryant Crowder is Jackson State’s problem now.

Many teams in the Dutchmen’s seemingly hopeless position—we’ll get into the gargantuan task of saving the season at the CAA Tournament in a bit—would have packed it in for the season or lacked the resiliency to keep bouncing back. One and/or the other pretty much happened in Jay Wright’s second season, when the Dutchmen opened the season by splitting their first 14 games before falling to Northeastern on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer. That began a nine-game losing streak for the Dutchmen, who ended up losing 11 of their final 13 games by an average of almost 17 points per game, Each of their final 10 losses was a double-digit affair.

But this is not an 8-16 team, in terms of either makeup or talent, and while frustration has seeped into their play at times, the Dutchmen have never quit. Now, of course, it’s easy to say an honest effort should be expected regardless of circumstance. But it says a lot about the players—as well as Cassara—that the effort has remained pure.

“I called Jack [Hayes] last night on my way home,” Cassara said after the Dutchmen beat Towson, 74-49, Wednesday night. “I said ‘You know, we just had another really good practice. That’s the sign of a team that hasn’t given up. That’s a sign of a team that’s continuing to work hard.”

It also says a lot about Cassara that he takes Dutchmen losses so badly that you are tempted to beat him to his Point Lookout home and empty the silverware drawer of forks and knives. Cassara didn’t get much sleep when the Dutchmen were the feel-good story of the regular season last year (thank you very much VCU for stealing our thunder once the NCAA Tournament got underway), so you can imagine his state of mind in the late nights and early mornings this year.

This team and these players will not define the Cassara Era at Hofstra. The guys who will do that are either still in high school or sitting at the end of the bench in warmups for every home game this season: Transfers Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Taran Buie, redshirt freshman Jordan Allen and, perhaps, Fresno State transfer Daquan Brown, who is enrolled at Hofstra this semester and hopes to get a hardship waiver and be ruled eligible by the NCAA for next season. (Daquan, if you’re reading this, Google “Brad Kelleher” and get comfortable in those sweats)

Some coaches in Cassara’s position would view a team like this as a write-off, speak early and often of how good next year will be and fret only about how this year will impact his win-loss record when he pursues his next gig. But Cassara coaches every game, and takes every loss, as if his career is riding on it. The enduring image of this season is Cassara running alongside a basketball skittering near the Hofstra bench during the James Madison game, as if he was going to dive after it himself.

As I asked a little less than 15 months ago: How can you not support a team like this? Coming out to the Arena for the first of the final four home games tomorrow is a chance for you to get in on the ground floor and say you were there at the beginning of the revival, even if it will almost certainly take until at least next year for us to all rise in unison after Cassara leads Hofstra to the promised land (since 2001-02, only one team that has started CAA play as poorly as the Dutchmen has won even one CAA Tournament game).

More importantly, it is a chance to support the seniors whose focus and commitment hasn’t wavered even as their last lap around the track has been anything but storybook. McMillan, who will end up spending less than a season-and-a-half in a Hofstra uniform thanks to the eye injury he suffered after 11 games last season—just beyond the point at which he would have still been eligible for a redshirt—has turned into the Dutchmen’s vocal leader and one hell of an entertaining player to watch. Don’t believe me? Watch what he does with the basketball and the referee the next time he’s at the free throw line.

Going all the way back to his high school days in Connecticut, Moore has never been thrust into the position of trying to create for others. He’ll lapse into old habits, but he’s trying: Moore has matched or exceeded his previous single-game high for assists (five) three times this season, all in the last 12 games. Lester had 22 double-digit scoring efforts in his first three seasons but 20 already this year and scored the 1,000th point of his career Wednesday—not bad for someone who wasn’t even on pace for 900 points at the start of the season.

Nobody’s dug deeper—in both the symbolic and literal senses—than Moore and Lester, each of whom are fifth-year seniors who embody the student-athlete ideal. Moore graduated in four years despite transferring to Hofstra after his sophomore year—it took me five-and-a-half years to do that, and I certainly wasn’t spending several hours a day in the gym and a chunk of the year on the road—and is getting his master’s in education. Lester, who came back for a redshirt senior year after missing last season with a quad injury, graduated in three-and-a-half years and is pursuing a master’s in linguistics.

Half a decade removed from high school, college life has to be growing a bit tedious for Moore, who turns 23 in May, and Lester, who turns 77—err, 24—in April. After putting in so much time with the program, they deserve a better reward than this, yet they show up for work everyday and hold out hope their final few weeks of college basketball will be memorable ones.

“It’s a credit to these two guys,” Cassara said as he was flanked by Lester and Moore following the loss to George Mason. “They continue to have positive attitudes. I’m really proud of them. I know that they’re incredibly frustrated. This is their senior year and they want nothing more than to win.”

The resolve is trickling down to the underclassmen as well: Less than half an hour after the Dutchmen won Wednesday night, Imes—who was just 1-of-8 from the field in the victory—was on the Arena floor taking dozens of jump shots.

The Dutchmen haven’t quit. Neither should you. Be there tomorrow with 10 friends.

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

Hofstra 74, Towson 49 (Or: Why do they feel this way? The promise of a new day)

You see, kids, long before Paula Abdul was that loon on American Idol, she had six no. 1 hits, the last of which was "The Promise Of A New Day." I would post the video, but she was wearing almost nothing at all and so it would be inappropriate. Well, that and it would result in the incineration of the Man Card I don't even own anyway.

With the arrival of a new month and a fresh start came an unfamiliar role for the Flying Dutchmen basketball team: Favorite.

Yet while the oddsmakers declared the Dutchmen were 15.5 points better than Towson Wednesday, Mo Cassara felt anything but secure. Towson, after all, was the one with the momentum Wednesday after it broke the longest losing streak in Division I history by beating UNC Wilmington last Saturday—a win that, technically, put Towson ahead of fellow one-win squad Hofstra in the CAA standings.

“Today was, in all honesty, the tightest I’ve been going into a game in a while because it was probably the first time in a month we were actually favored,” Cassara said. “So it was a little bit of pressure today saying this is a game we’ve got to win or we should win. We haven’t had that in a while. So I was curious to see how our guys reacted.”

Turns out the Dutchmen enjoyed being the favorites. Not only did the Dutchmen lead from wire-to-wire in a 74-49 win, but Mike Moore (28 points) and Nathaniel Lester (19 points, including the 1,000th of his career on a free throw with 15:19 to play) outscored Towson outscored the Tigers by themselves until reserve Christian Collins hit a 3-pointer just before the final buzzer.

“We made it a challenge to ourselves in the locker room to just outplay them, outwork them, because we were on, basically, the same boat,” Moore said.

It wasn’t a perfect game by the Dutchmen, who shot 40 percent and received as many field goals from walk-on Matt Grogan in four attempts over six minutes as starters David Imes, Stephen Nwaukoni and Dwan McMillan had in 16 attempts over 74 minutes. (The good news: That was enough to—SPOILER ALERT—earn Grogan his first appearance in the Stars of the Game)

The Dutchmen were whistled for a Mason-esque three technical fouls by another fine #CAAHoops officiating crew (only Lester’s, for hanging on the rim after a dunk, appeared to be deserved) that lost control of a game that grew sloppy and chippy.

But the effort was more than enough against a Towson team that reverted back to the bad habits that put it in the record book for all the wrong reasons. The Tigers committed 27 turnovers, had one more defensive rebound (21) than the Dutchmen had offensive rebounds and shot 14-of-33 from the free throw line.

The Dutchmen recorded 12 steals, including five by Moore, enjoyed a double-digit lead throughout the final 26 minutes. They went on a 13-0 run after Towson closed within 10 points with 16:33 to play and extended the lead to as many as 28 on Grogan’s putback in the final minute.

“I thought our effort was great tonight,” Cassara said. “Our execution can improve but our effort was great. I’m proud of that.”

Afterward, Cassara, Moore and Lester were sporting some rare smiles about not only the win—the Dutchmen’s first home victory in CAA play in a mere 340 days dating back to Charles Jenkins’ finale last Feb. 26—and Lester’s achievement but also their ability to leave January behind and focus on February. During a team meeting Monday, at the end of the Dutchmen’s worst month in a decade, coaches and players alike implored each other to approach the remaining games as an entirely new season.

“We can’t continue to talk about games that we might have lost at the last second or shots we didn’t make or plays we didn’t execute,” Cassara said. “We have a new clean slate. We have, essentially, a nine-game season and we just keep marking off every day. We’re going to try to win every day, whether it’s a practice or a game and try to continue to get better everyday. And I think we made a little bit of progress towards that today.”

The Dutchmen also made a bit of progress in the CAA standings—into a tie for 10th with William & Mary, whom the Dutchmen play for the only time on Feb. 22—with the win, which also went a long way towards assuring they will not finish in last place. By beating Towson in the lone meeting of the season between the teams (hooray unbalanced schedule that destroys tradition!), the Dutchmen are assured of having the tiebreaker over the Tigers, who would have to win two more games than the Dutchmen the rest of the way in order to finish ahead of Hofstra.

“I’m happy for everybody—nobody likes to lose—and I also know as a coach how close we’ve been,” Cassara said. “I think our guys continue to remain competitive and I’m excited to go back to practice [Thursday]. I really am. I’m excited to get to practice [Thursday] and I’m excited for our game on Saturday.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Towson, 2/1)

3: Mike Moore

2: Nathaniel Lester

1: Matt Grogan

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 51

Nathaniel Lester 34

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 14

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 6

Moussa Kone 2

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

George Mason 55, Hofstra 50 (Or: They’re going out of their heads going crazy)

An appropriate song in more ways than one for the 2011-12 Flying Dutchmen.

If I were to rank losses to George Mason on a scale of 1 to 10—one being barely bummed and 10 being Quoting-Ugly-Kid-Joe-pissed—then last night’s 55-50 loss to the first-place Patriots would rank no higher than a five or so.

(I realize it’s not normal to rank losses to a particular opponent on a scale of 1 to 10. But you knew what you were getting into here)

There was no Greg Johnson, driving the lane in the waning seconds with Hofstra down three in the CAA Tournament and Antoine Agudio begging for the ball all alone behind the 3-point line. There was no Agudio missing the free throw that would have given the Dutchmen a four-point lead in the final seconds of overtime.

This was not a lopsided loss by 20-plus points in Fairfax. There was no drunken Mason grad nearly sending me to the other side on the way home from a close loss at Mason. And, of course, there was no Ryan Pearson piling on with Montgomery Burns rubbing his bony fingers together in approval as his nation of Waylon Smithers lackeys declared him the world’s finest sportsman.

No, this one ended with an exhausted Pearson—who scored seven points and pulled down eight rebounds in the second half despite having his face bloodied twice in the first half—exchanging a relieved high five at midcourt with a similarly spent Mike Morrison as Sherrod Wright hit the game-icing free throws to cap a nearly perfect night at the line for Mason (20-of-23—these aren’t Monty’s Patriots) with 19 seconds left.

A few seconds later, after Morrison blocked Shemiye McLendon’s running layup and Corey Edwards grabbed the rebound, new Mason coach Paul Hewitt waved for Edwards to get the ball over halfcourt—not so he could call timeout and draw up a 3-point shot like his predecessor would have, but to run the clock out!

It’s a new era in Hofstra-Mason games (last night featured, by far, the most entertaining in-game Twitter exchanges in DD history) but the loss was the same old story in a whole lot of ways as the Flying Dutchmen fell to 1-9 in the CAA with their SIXTH CAA loss by six points or less.

As has often been the case this year, the Dutchmen were at least partially done in by a lack of bodies. Mike Moore (18 points on 7-of-12 shooting, including 4-of-7 from 3-point land, and a career-high six assists) and Nathaniel Lester (12 points, his CAA-best 14th straight game with at least 10 points) were a fine 1-2 combo again for Hofstra. But while Stevie Mejia, McLendon and Moussa Kone combined for just six points on 2-of-9 shooting in 52 minutes, Mason received 36 points on 9-of-22 shooting over 86 minutes from its reserves. No Mason player played more than 29 minutes while four Dutchmen played at least 28 minutes.

For the fifth time in the last six games, the Dutchmen raced out to an early lead of at least six points—and opened a lead of at least nine for the fourth time in that span—but could not build on it in the first half and squandered late opportunities to escape with the win.

For the third straight Wednesday, the Dutchmen came back from a second half deficit of at least eight points to tie the score or take the lead. And for the third straight Wednesday, the Dutchmen had a chance to tie the score or take the lead in the final minute but couldn’t get over the hump (get it?).

Moore, Lester and Mo Cassara looked steamrolled at the podium, and it had nothing to do with losing to big bad Mason. Every loss hurts at this point, and this funk doubly stings because it consists mostly of close losses to the best of the CAA.

Five of the Dutchmen’s last six games have come against teams currently in the top half of the CAA. The Dutchmen have lost those five games by a combined 33 points, and only once by more than six points.

“I think our energy and our effort’s been great,” Cassara said. “We’re winning at halftime against George Mason. We’re winning at halftime at Old Dominion. We’re down three at VCU. We just run out of gas a little bit, I guess. We’re going to have to keep trying to find ways to finish games, because we’re coming out with energy, we’re having great practices, our attitudes have been terrific. We just can’t seem to kind of get over the hump.”

The Dutchmen had more opportunities than usual to do so Wednesday. The Dutchmen scored the first nine points, didn’t allow Mason—which shot an unimaginable 4-of-23 in the first half—to break into double digits until there were less than three minutes to play and led 20-19 at the half. It was the first time the Dutchmen allowed fewer than 20 points in a half since Jan. 21, 2009, when they TRAILED William & Mary 17-15 at the Arena.

Andre Cornelius took charge for Mason to open the second half with consecutive 3-pointers to jumpstart a 19-10 run for the Patriots that gave them a 38-30 lead at the midway mark. But the Dutchmen inched back, tied the game twice on 3-pointers by David Imes and Moore and took the lead at 41-40 with 6:21 left on another 3-pointer by Moore.

That was the first of four times the Dutchmen took the lead over a span of a little more than four minutes. Imes, who scored all nine of his points in the second half, put the Dutchmen ahead twice with long jumpers from the corner, the last with 2:16 left.

But Sherrod Wright’s 3-point play with 1:47 left put the Patriots ahead for good at 51-50 and the Dutchmen missed an agonizing three shots—a jumper and a 3-pointer by Lester and a 3-pointer by Moore, all of which looked good out of their hands—before Edwards’ two free throws. Then, after Cassara used the Dutchmen’s last timeout with 27 seconds left, Mejia got a good open look at a tying 3-pointer, but it clanged off the rim.

That left Cassara saying the same things he’s been saying for weeks—bemoaning the Dutchmen’s rotten luck and hoping they salvage something from the season in February. “We’re better than our record shows,” Cassara said. “Again, we’ve been in an incredible amount of close games. We just haven’t been able to get something to bounce our way.

“Unfortunately, we just haven’t been able to finish and it’s a combination of a lot of things,” Cassara said. “But we have to keep working. February can be our month. I have to keep telling our guys that. Obviously, we’re frustrated because we’re in every game, especially against the top part of the league. But basketball’s a long season and we’ve still got a good month of February [ahead].”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Mason, 1/25)

3: Mike Moore

2: Nathaniel Lester

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 46

Nathaniel Lester 32

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 11

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 5

Moussa Kone 2

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Postgame Buffet: VCU 61, Hofstra 49 (Or: I await the day good fortune comes our way and we win down the Kings Highway)

Do the Flying Dutchmen have to travel down the King's Highway in Virginia to get to Richmond? For purposes of this blog entry, I am going to assume yes.

Buried in day work and something special for tomorrow morning (hint: who does Hofstra play tomorrow?), so here’s a postgame buffet from the Flying Dutchmen’s 61-49 loss to VCU that makes up for in brevity what it lacks in timeliness. Or something like that.

1.) The Dutchmen’s 14th loss of the season was the one that stung the least. The win over James Madison Saturday lessened the desperation that accompanied every game since the start of January. And let’s face it, of the 18 conference games, this was probably the one the Dutchmen weren’t going to win no matter what. Because the Dutchmen have NEVER won at VCU’s Siegel Center. Last night’s loss, in the 2,012th men’s basketball game in Hofstra history, dropped the Dutchmen to 0-9 all-time on the road against the Rams. So, you know, we’re kinda used to this.

2.) Still, this one did sting a bit, because it was very easy to make a case the Dutchmen had a shot at remaining in this one until the last minute for the 17,000th time this year, if not flat-out win the game. The Dutchmen displayed their usual resiliency in the first half, when they fell behind by at least seven points three different times yet closed to within 35-32 when Mike Moore banked a 3-pointer just before the first half buzzer.

And the Dutchmen had four chances to tie or take the lead in the first two-plus minutes of the second half but could never get the equalizer or inch ahead. Who knows what might have happened if David Imes’ 3-pointer from the left corner was a couple inches longer and the Dutchmen grabbed a one-point lead in the first 90 seconds? Instead, missing two shots over five empty possessions proved to be a sign of things to come for the Dutchmen, who were just 4-of-20 from the field and scored just 17 points on 31 second half possessions. Tough to win when the shooting touch goes that ice cold.

3.) Not surprisingly, VCU suffocated Moore after he scored 11 of his game-high 17 points on 5-of-10 shooting in the first half. And unfortunately for the Dutchmen, Moore grew frustrated by his inability to get open and get touches during the second half, when he scored six points—four from the free throw line—and hit just one of his four field goal attempts. It was a lapse into bad habits for Moore, who was similarly covered by James Madison Saturday yet dished to Stevie Mejia for the game-winning layup. After recording multiple assists in five straight games, he had just one assist and tied his career-high with six turnovers Monday. The Dutchmen fare best when Moore gets others involved when he is draped—i.e. in the second half—and any hope they have of mounting a second half run and advancing beyond Friday in the CAA Tournament rests on Moore resisting the instinct to force things offensively.

4.) Here’s a good bar bet question for you (if you happen to discuss Hofstra basketball at a bar, but I’m pretty sure I’d be the only person who did that, if only I went to bars): Name the Dutchman whose current streak of double-digit scoring efforts is the longest in the CAA. It’s not Moore but Nathaniel Lester, who extended that run to 13 games by scoring 12 points while adding a team-high eight rebounds. It wasn’t quite the game Lester appeared headed for at halftime, when he had seven points and seven rebounds, but it was still a very sturdy effort by a player who is very quietly putting together a legitimate run at earning second- or third-team All-CAA honors. Lester ranks ninth in the CAA in scoring and is tied for 10th in rebounding, which makes him just one of two players to rank in the top 10 in both categories. This is the type of year everyone envisioned for Lester when he was the jewel of the freshman class of 2007-08, which makes it so bittersweet that he’s capping his career in fine fashion in the midst of what looks like a lost season for the Dutchmen.

5.) While the Dutchmen didn’t lose this one in agonizing fashion, it was still symbolic of their close-but-not-quite season. “In the first half we were right there,” Mo Cassara said in Brian Bohl’s postgame recap. “We just ran out of gas a little bit and their pressure wore us down.”

In other words, an earnest and tireless effort wasn’t enough to overcome the Dutchmen’s razor-thin margin for error. A team that needs a little bit of everything didn’t get it. While reserves Mejia, Shemiye McLendon and Moussa Kone combined for another solid game (12 points on 5-of-10 shooting), Dwan McMillan was just 1-of-8 shooting and the trio of Kone, David Imes and Stephen Nwaukoni combined for just seven rebounds.

The Dutchmen forced 17 turnovers, but committed 18. And the Dutchmen looked wiped in the second half, and while it didn’t help this was their second road game in three days and their third game in six-day span overall, the second half fade was a familiar one for a team that basically only has an eight-man rotation (though Matt Grogan saw some time in the waning moments). Again: This one didn’t sting nearly as badly as the other seven CAA losses, but it carried with it the “what ifs?” of every defeat other than the Jan. 2 loss to VCU. Unfortunately for the Dutchmen, it almost certainly won’t be the last time that happens in a season in which the line between contention and wearing the road uniforms on Friday in Richmond is a razor thin one.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. VCU, 1/23)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Mike Moore

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 43

Nathaniel Lester 30

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 10

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 5

Moussa Kone 2

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Hofstra 71, James Madison 69 (Or: Happy Happy Joy Joy)

I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!

Mo Cassara had tried just about everything to coax a win out of the Flying Dutchmen and end the longest streak of bad luck in college basketball this season. He yelled and he provided verbal pats on the back. He worked the Dutchmen hard in practice and he eased up. He expressed frustration at press conferences and he expressed optimism. He implored the Dutchmen to channel the 2004 Red Sox and the 2011 New York Giants.

Turns out all he had to do was ditch his sport coat.

With his coach displaying an ultra-rare look on the sideline, Stevie Mejia drove the lane and converted the winning 3-point play with just over six seconds to go before he provided the suffocating defense at midcourt that clinched the Flying Dutchmen’s 71-69 win over James Madison. The win, the Dutchmen’s first CAA win in 321 days (but who’s counting?), finally ended the second-worst conference start in Hofstra history, a stretch in which the Dutchmen lost seven games by a mere 42 points.

“It’s like the weight has been lifted,” Cassara said from Richmond Saturday night. “It was a big-time winning play. We’ve been talking about how we’ve got to make more winning plays and we had a bunch tonight. Fortunately we were able to make enough down the stretch to win the game in a hostile environment.”

When Cassara flung off the coat, though, it looked like the Dutchmen were destined to suffer yet another gut-wrenching loss. Cassara, a superstitious sort in all facets of life but particularly when it comes to his game day attire, is the anti-Shaka Smart when it comes to his suit jacket: It stays on. Always.

Yet he ditched it in fury with 1:16 left Saturday, right after James Madison took its first lead in almost 16 minutes on a dunk by Enoch Hood. Cassara was already furious over what happened about 90 seconds earlier, when, with the Dutchmen nursing a four-point lead, Dwan McMillan fouled out on the second worst charge call of the week. Actually, this one might have been even worse, since McMillan was at half court when it happened.

(Note: It wasn’t worse than Dennis Allocco’s travesty)

Humpty Hitchens (HIM AGAIN) drained a 3-pointer on the Dukes’ subsequent trip to pull James Madison within 62-61 and even Cassara was thinking the Dutchmen—who were up by nine points in the first half and by eight points earlier in the second half—were doomed. He was so furious he took off the coat because the sleeves were restraining him and “…I couldn’t swing my arms fast enough.”

The Dutchmen were in the midst of one of their best games of the year and were winning even though Mike Moore (10 points on 3-of-10 shooting) was bottled up. And they were finally getting contributions from everyone: Dutchmen reserves scored just seven points in the previous two games but Mejia, Shemiye McLendon and Moussa Kone ended up with 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting.

And yet it was happening again. “I was just so frustrated,” Cassara said. “It was like a Twilight Zone. Playing our butts off and then we just can’t get a break.”

But unlike the previous seven losses, the Dutchmen made their own breaks down the stretch and finally got a couple things to go their way. David Imes, who scored a team-high 11 points in the first half, pulled down two rebounds, one on each end of the floor, following the Hitchens 3-pointer and hit three of four free throws—his only points of the second half—to give the Dutchmen a four-point lead again.

Imes’ defensive rebound came when after the Dukes missed two shots in the paint, including a thunderous dunk by Hood. It was Imes who had one of the Dutchmen’s two missed dunks against Northeastern in a 64-62 loss and Imes who accidentally tipped in a missed Drexel free throw in the 60-54 loss to the Dragons Wednesday.

Then A.J. Davis’ 3-point play and Hood’s dunk finally put the Dukes ahead, Nathaniel Lester—who had another huge second half and scored 17 of his 23 points after intermission—drained a 3-pointer to give the Dutchmen the 68-66 lead.

“I’ve got to credit coach [Pat] Sellers,” Cassara said. “We went through a little rut in the second half, they were just doing so much to take away Mike [Moore]. And [Sellers said] ‘Gotta go to Nat, Nat’s hot, he’s got a good shot, we’ve got to keep going to him.” We called his number a bunch of different times and he hit some big shots.”

But Lester ended up needing Mejia to save him from misery. Lester stole the ball on James Madison’s next trip and, after a timeout, missed a layup with 23 seconds left. Hood slammed home a dunk on the other end, was fouled by Mejia and hit the free throw to put the Dukes up 69-68.

“When Nat misses that layup at the end of the game and they get a 3-point play, they go up, I was like ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Cassara said.

The Dutchmen didn’t have a timeout, but Mejia—who was the third option on the play behind Moore and Lester—got the ball from a heavily covered Moore, drove the lane, hit the layup and was fouled by Hitchens. Mejia, who had hit just 11 of 25 free throws, drained the free throw and then pressured Devon Moore into losing the ball at half-court. Despite contact being made, no foul was called, and the Dukes didn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.

It was a cathartic layup for Mejia, who has struggled badly and lost his starting job to McMillan since suffering a hamstring injury against Boston University Nov. 27. Mejia’s three field goals Saturday marked the first time he had multiple baskets in a game since Nov. 26—the day the Dutchmen stunned Cleveland State.

During a chat in his office last week, Cassara implored Mejia to focus less on what has gone wrong this year and more on the next year-and-a-half. “I’m just so happy for Stevie Mejia, he has been such a shell of himself,” Cassara said. “Stevie and I had this long heart to heart the other day. He’s starting to get healthy—maybe 75 to 80 percent—and mentally he wasn’t. He’s just so frustrated. He’s wanted to do so well and hasn’t been able to.

“I said to him ‘Listen: We’re not talking about Rhode Island anymore or this injury anymore. What we’re going to do is make this a successful year-and-a-half for you, on and off the court.

“Later on he texted me and [said] ‘Thank you. I feel so much better.’ He played that way today. Just so happy for him.”

And after ending the losing streak, Cassara found out that plenty of people were rooting for him, as well. “My phone just blew up—texts from people around the league, ADs, coaches,” Cassara said. “People knew how close we were. It wasn’t like you’re a bad team and you can’t win. It was like, hey, this is a pretty good team, just haven’t been able to catch a break.

“So I really appreciate that. I think that’s a sign that this is not a bad team. Just a team that has been, between injuries and various other things and some tough luck, hasn’t been where it would like to be.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. James Madison, 1/21)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Stevie Mejia

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 41

Nathaniel Lester 27

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 9

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 5

Moussa Kone 2

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Postgame Buffet: UNC Wilmington 86, Hofstra 80 (Or: I ain’t seen the sun since I don’t know when)

I can see this "0FerFile," though.

Things were so much simpler and promising when I was younger. I was focused, committed and optimistic; certain I could not only change myself but the world around me.

But here it is, a week later, and not only has my diet yet to begin, I prepared for writing during the overnight hours by wolfing down an ice cream sundae. Not only is my office not clean, it still looks like it needs FEMA intervention.

Most importantly, the Flying Dutchmen have as many CAA wins today as they did on New Year’s Day. Which is to say none. From taking random happenings and declaring they were a sign of a magical evening and season ahead to starting a file on my desktop titled “0FerNotes,” this has not been the start to 2012 anyone envisioned.

In fact, it officially became the worst start to a calendar year of the Defiantly Dutch era Saturday, when the Dutchmen dropped a not-as-close-as-it-seemed 86-80 decision at UNC Wilmington. The Dutchmen are 0-4 in CAA play, the first time they have opened conference play with four straight losses since 1987-88, and history suggests the year will only get longer from here.

So how DID we get here (the Dutchmen at 0-4, not me still eating and working amidst a pile of paperwork like it’s 2011)? Feast on the postgame buffet. Don’t lie. Your diet hasn’t started yet, either.

1.) While there are plenty of valid ways to spin the belief that 0-4 record is not as bad as it looks and that the Dutchmen’s future isn’t as bleak as it might seem, an 0-4 start brings out the inner Bill Parcells/Bill Belichick: It is what it is and you are what your record says you are.

For the Dutchmen, the most ample proof of the gridiron theorem was on display during a pair of destructive stretches in each half in which UNC Wilmington took control. The Seahawks scored on 11 of 13 possessions in a 6:51 span in the first half as they turned an 18-13 deficit into a 38-28 lead. That run was sparked by four offensive rebounds which the Seahawks turned into seven points and symbolized an evening in which the Dutchmen allowed season-highs in points and points per possession (1.217) and had little answer for power forward and sure-fire All-CAA pick Keith Rendleman (19 points on 7-of-10 shooting) while allowing the Seahawks to hit nearly 50 percent (8-of-18) of their 3-pointers.

The Dutchmen briefly managed to cut the gap to three late in the first half and kept the deficit below 10 in the early minutes of the second half before UNC Wilmington went on an 11-0 run in which the Dutchmen failed to score on eight straight possessions, during which they were 0-for-9 from the field and twice failed to convert offensive rebounds into points. The field goal drought actually reached 10 attempts before Stephen Nwaukoni ended the funk for the Dutchmen with a free throw.

Maybe the Dutchmen are better than 0-4, but they don’t have the manpower or the depth to dig out of the holes they have tended to create for themselves this year. The Dutchmen trailed by at least 15 points Saturday for the third straight game and the seventh time this season. They’re 0-7 in those games.

2.) Offensively, the boxscore seems to be an encouraging one for the Dutchmen, who reached 80 points for the fourth time in six games and lost by six points or less for the third time in CAA play.

Nathaniel Lester had 23 points, his second-most ever, and tied a career high with 12 rebounds. Mike Moore scored 22 points and had three assists and three steals. Dwan McMillan also got into double figures with 11 points to go along with two assists and two steals.

But the close margin of defeat and the apparent offensive outburst were each of the lies, damn lies and statistics variety. The Dutchmen got closer than eight points just once in the final 16 minutes—on Nwaukoni’s jumper with four seconds left. The Dutchmen hit all four of their field goal attempts in the final minute, which improved their second half shooting percentage to 29.3 percent (12-of-41). In addition, the Dutchmen had just eight assists, a remarkably low figure on an 80-point night.

And much of the production from the Dutchmen’s three leading scorers was cosmetic. Lester scored eight of his points in the final 41 seconds, 10 points in the final two minutes and 15 points in the final 7:03. Moore was just 7-of-19 shooting, including 2-of-11 in the second half and 2-of-8 overall from 3-point land. McMillan scored five of his points in a 14-second span midway through the second half. In other words: Too little and/or too late.

While the idea of Moore and Lester teaming up to replace Charles Jenkins—with Lester playing the finisher role once defenses key on Moore in the second half—sounds good, they need to distribute their scoring in a more productive manner. They also need help, particularly from Shemiye McLendon, who was scoreless and played just 15 minutes on a night in which six Dutchmen finished with at least three fouls. The Dutchmen got more fouls (10) than points (nine) from their bench, though a couple of Matt Grogan’s four fouls were burned in the waning seconds.

3.) It was not an entirely negative night for the Dutchmen, who got encouraging performances from big men Nwaukoni, Moussa Kone and David Imes. Nwaukoni had nine rebounds and has pulled down an impressive 29 rebounds in the last three games. That’s sixth-most in the conference since CAA play resumed, which makes the Dutchmen the only team with two players in the top six (Lester has 32 boards in the last three games). Nwaukoni, the hardest worker—and perhaps the rawest player—on the Dutchmen, also continued evolving on offense and again displayed his new-found jumper during an eight-point performance.

Kone tied a career-high and set a new one, respectively, with six points and seven rebounds in just 15 minutes. Imes was rendered a non-factor in the first half thanks to three fouls, but he had five points and three rebounds in 15 second half minutes, which puts him right on pace for the near double-double Mo Cassara would love to see from him on a regular basis. With Old Dominion and Drexel coming up in the next 10 days, the Dutchmen will need their forwards to continue creating opportunities on the boards.

4.) What other positives are there to be taken from this 0-4 hole? The Dutchmen have the talent to win CAA games—they are not undertaking the most massive rebuilding project in conference history, a la Towson. If they can score 80 points on a night in which they shoot less than 40 percent and lose by six after their worst defensive effort of the season, then how far are they away from turning a corner and winning some games?

The Dutchmen’s four losses have been by a combined 26 points, the second-smallest margin of defeat amongst the 14 CAA teams that have started 0-4 since 2001-02. (William & Mary lost its first four CAA games by 24 points last year) For all intents and purposes, they are a Humpty Hitchens half-court shot and three missed free throws against Delaware away from being 2-2 and being amongst the gaggle of teams in the CAA’s muddy middle.

A season that has already been unpredictable even by #CAAHoops standards also provides hope the Dutchmen can make up some ground quickly. VCU, pegged by a certain dope as the no-doubt-about-it conference champion after the Rams’ rout of the Dutchmen last Monday, has lost two in a row and is looking up at George Mason and Old Dominion as well as Georgia State, Delaware and UNC Wilmington, just like we all figured back in October.

(Fortunately, VCU’s loss to Georgia State Wednesday inspired self-satisfied Mason fans to crawl out of the woodwork and declare I have no idea what I’m talking about. And this time it didn’t even take suggesting Jim Larranaga falls in the water whenever he walks off the poolside deck at his palatial Miami home.)

It certainly helps to view the Dutchmen’s chances through blue-and-gold tinted sunglasses, but the idea they could win three or four in a row just as quickly as they lost three or four in a row is not completely outlandish. Which is all well and good and optimistic, but…

5.) …the Dutchmen will have to make history just to approach .500. Since the CAA expanded in 2001-02, the average finish of the 12 teams to open league play 0-4 is 11th (well, 10.46th) with 3.23 wins. Six of those squads finished last (10th prior to 2005-06). Only Towson in 2009-10 and Northeastern last year managed to win as many as six games and only Towson finished as high as eighth. Teams that have opened 0-4 since 2001-02 have won a total of four CAA Tournament games, none after the Friday opening round games.

In addition, the last Hofstra team to open conference play 0-4 finished 2-12 in the East Coast Conference (you can look it up, Litos!) 24 seasons ago. Now, of course, that won’t have an impact on the Dutchmen as they try crawling out of this hole. But the scope of the job ahead is daunting, and if the Dutchmen dug themselves all the way to China in starting 0-2, then they’re in Antarctica by now.

And history is not on their side as they prepare for Northeastern Wednesday: Only three of the last 12 teams to open 0-4 won their fifth game. Oh geez. I really don’t want to have to update my “0FerNotes” file Wednesday night.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. UNCW, 1/7)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Mike Moore

1: Stephen Nwaukoni

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 35

Nathaniel Lester 21

Dwan McMillan 13

Shemiye McLendon 9

David Imes 8

Stephen Nwaukoni 5

Stevie Mejia 3

Bryant Crowder 2

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