Northeastern 58, Hofstra 51 (Or: Happiness one step behind)

Another tune that sums up this year's Flying Dutchmen. (And yes: To the well again with Extreme!)

Someday, college basketball historians will scan the smoldering embers of the 2011-12 Flying Dutchmen season and wonder how a team that should have been no better or worse than a middle-of-the-pack, .500-level team ended up mired at or near the bottom of the CAA and enduring one of the program’s worst seasons in a generation.

Those historians will find the answers to their questions if they can stumble across a DVD copy of the Dutchmen’s 58-51 loss to Northeastern Saturday at Matthews Arena. Therein is the explanation for how the Dutchmen could outperform the Huskies in many statistical categories yet lose the Barone Bowl Trophy (if only it existed) and fall by seven points in a game that was not as close as the final score indicated.

And the game film also provides the reasons why the Dutchmen are 1-10 in CAA play—and tied for next-to-last place now that Towson has ended its record losing streak, which @NUHF, @atowne07 and my wife “watched” via Twitter at Conor Larkin’s around the corner from Northeastern, have I mentioned lately on any social media forum how much of my soul I’d be willing to sell to move to Boston?— and why January 2012 was the program’s losingest month since January 1995, even if the Dutchmen have outscored by a mere 62 points since New Year’s Day.

Of course, you’d have to pay particularly close attention in watching the DVD, because the difference between victory and defeat for the Dutchmen this season is as fine as the blink of an eye.

“This is a tough league,” Mo Cassara said. “When you’re not playing well, and your margin for error is very small, one turnover for us almost seems like it’s four or five right now. We’re trying to create some easy baskets and we just haven’t been able to do that. We haven’t been able to string enough winning plays together to win.”

While the Dutchmen were once again frigid offensively—they endured eight scoreless stretches of at least two minutes and shot just 30 percent from the field in scoring 51 or fewer points for the third straight game—and had just 15 defensive rebounds to 11 offensive boards for Northeastern, they seemingly concocted a good recipe for winning by forcing six more turnovers than they committed (16-10) and by scoring more points than the Huskies off turnovers (18-11), second chance baskets (15-12), the fast break (10-7) and from the bench (12-2).

Yet the Dutchmen were done in by missed opportunities in every single one of those categories. The Dutchmen had the ball down one in the waning seconds of the first half, but at the end of an otherwise sharp possession, Matt Grogan’s pass down low was stolen by Jonathan Lee, who converted it into a layup that gave the Huskies a 30-27 halftime lead.

Three times in the second half, the Dutchmen forced a turnover and created a fast break but threw or kicked away a chance to close within six points. A David Imes pass eluded Nathaniel Lester just before the under-16 timeout while Mike Moore and Lester accidentally booted the ball off steals by Imes and Moore, respectively, in the final five minutes.

These games don’t exist in a vacuum, of course, but who knows how the tempo and tone would have been changed if the Dutchmen converted all three of those turnovers into fast break points?

Imes’ steal and turnover happened at the beginning of a two-minute stretch in which neither team scored but the Dutchmen missed four shots—two 3-pointers by Moore and two layups by Imes. Moore (17 points, steals) and Imes (10 points and eight rebounds) were the most impressive players on the court for the Dutchmen, but they needed 28 shots for those 27 points.

“Mike Moore had 17 points, but he’s 1-for-9 from 3,” Cassara said. “If he’s 4-for-9, it’s probably a one-possession game. We just need that extra shot to go in. We stole the ball a couple times going down the court to cut it to six and we didn’t even get a shot.”

As for Northeastern, it managed to get the extra shot to go in when it mattered most. The Huskies had eight third-chance points, including a 3-pointer by Lee to start the second half and spark a 10-2 run that basically buried the Dutchmen. Northeastern’s first 3-pointer of the game, by Quincy Ford, was also off a pair of offensive rebounds. And later in the first half, Ford drained a jumper after he rebounded the second of a pair of missed free throws by Kauri Black.

“I told our team I thought we had probably about 10 points in defensive breakdowns where we were late guarding or we weren’t in position,” Cassara said.

There’s no statistical measure for when a team is worn out by losing, the bad breaks it has absorbed and the bad breaks it can’t seem to help but create for itself. The Dutchmen seemed to reach that point Saturday for the first time this month—a month in which they were the only CAA team not to play consecutive home games as well as one of two teams with two two-game road trips (Towson). They were also one of just three teams (along with Old Dominion and Towson) to have two stretches in which they played three of four games away from home.

For the first time since the six-point loss to UNC Wilmington three weeks earlier, the Dutchmen never seriously threatened in the second half. They got within six points once in the final 16:54, on a meaningless 3-pointer by Shemiye McLendon with 42 seconds left.

Cassara did some mixing and matching in hopes of generating something—both Dwan McMillan and Stevie Mejia were on the bench for most of the final eight minutes—but the 10 points the Dutchmen got from their reserves came on a 3-of-13 shooting performance. Northeastern’s two bench points, meanwhile, came on a 1-of-3 effort.

The Dutchmen finally get a homestand this week—it’s Alanis-level ironic that the Dutchmen are playing a school-record 17 home games this season yet spent all of January living out of a suitcase—when Towson and Georgia State visit and Cassara hopes his squad can embark on a February that will at least leave everyone feeling a little better about this season while providing the returnees something to build on for next year.

“We’ve got a week at home, no travel, back to school, hopefully get a little bit of rhythm and get some confidence back and we get a couple shots to fall at home,” Cassara said.

Cassara and the Dutchmen could find reason for optimism Saturday on the other end of the court. Northeastern lost its first eight CAA games last year by a total of 86 points, a margin inflated by a 28-point loss to George Mason. But the Huskies won four in a row immediately after that, finished 6-12 in CAA play—by far the best record of any team to ever open 0-8—and are entrenched in fifth place this season at 7-4.

“We were in that situation last year, where we played good basketball but just not winning basketball,” Northeastern coach Bill Coen said. “I think you learn more from losing than you do winning.”

For the Dutchmen’s sake let’s hope the learning stops now that school has started.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Northeastern, 1/28)

3: David Imes

2: Mike Moore

1: Stevie Mejia

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 48

Nathaniel Lester 32

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 14

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 6

Moussa Kone 2

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Hofstra 78, Northeastern 75 (Or: The Other Side)

Aerosmith is no better than my third-favorite Boston band behind Extreme and Boston, but damn if they don't write songs appropriate for Hofstra-Northeastern games! (And yes this is at least the third The Other Side reference I've made in a post, sue me)

The Line between euphoria and disappointment is equal parts readily apparent and microscopic. It was obvious in the smile on Charles Jenkins’ face Saturday afternoon, when he had perhaps his worst game in three years in the Flying Dutchmen’s 78-75 win over Northeastern, and the scowl he wore seven days earlier, after he cemented his status as Hofstra’s best player in generations by breaking the school scoring record in a 65-60 loss to Drexel.

It was clear in how Mo Cassara could relish the opportunity to eke out a nail-biting win in front of an enthusiastic crowd Saturday, and how playing in front of the first full house in four years provided him little consolation following the Drexel defeat. And it is obvious in the standings today, which show Hofstra tied for third place with Old Dominion at 9-4 in the CAA, as opposed to tied for fourth with Drexel at 8-5.

“I feel great,” Jenkins said. “I didn’t score a basket and we still won this game, I would have the same personality I have right now. Like last week when I broke the scoring record and we still lost the game—a lot of people were more concerned about the scoring record than the game. Winning is more important than anything to me.

“We needed it. Coach stressed that we just needed to get this game, to win this game, just to get right back into the mix of things because the standings are so tight.”

But how did they end up on the right side of The Line? How did the Dutchmen exit the Arena and walk into a foggy, rainy night with dispositions as sunny as a summer day while Northeastern trudged to their buses for a ride back to Boston that probably felt twice as long as the one Hofstra endured four weeks earlier?

How did Northeastern fail, in four opportunities in the final four minutes, to get the one late basket Drexel scored a week earlier that allowed them to withstand the Dutchmen’s attempts to come back from an eight-point deficit in the final four minutes? What is the difference between a team grabbing its first second half lead in four games and trailing the entire second half for a fourth straight loss and the fifth time in as many conference losses?

The box score is deceptively simple. The Dutchmen ended the game on runs of 10-0 (all following the final media timeout with 3:52 to play) and 26-7 as they completed their comeback from a 14-point second half deficit.

Jenkins scored nine of his team-high 21 points in the final 5:21. The Dutchmen had three players score in double figures, which increased their record to 14-1 in such games, and received so many contributions from so many players that it was almost impossible to whittle down the field of candidates for the 3 Stars of the Game (spoiler alert: We have copies of the Defiantly Dutch board game for Shemiye McLendon and Yves Jules).

Brad Kelleher scored 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting, hit two 3-pointers—the Dutchmen are 6-0 when he drains multiple 3-pointers—and set season (and, err, career) highs with six assists in 37 minutes. He also turned the ball over just once, the third time in the last four games he’s committed one turnover or none.

“Brad Kelleher’s best game,” Cassara said. “He really had some great composure today. I thought he did a great job really running the team and [being] able to pass the ball, too.”

McLendon played just 12 minutes, his second-briefest stint of the year, but scored nine points and hit all six free throw attempts, including the final four points of the game in the final 1:56 that completed the Dutchmen’s comeback. He has now hit free throws to force overtime, win or clinch a game in each of the Dutchmen’s last three victories.

“He doesn’t change his demeanor, whether it’s snowing or sunny or we’re up or down,” Cassara said. “That’s one of the real great things about him. A lot of credit to him, he’s been able to step up and make some big shots for us.”

Jules hit two 3-pointers as well, matching his total in his last 48 games, while also playing outstanding defense on Chase Allen in the second half on his way (Allen had six points on 1-of-5 shooting in the second half after scoring 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting in the first half) to playing a season-high 22 minutes—as many as he played in the previous three games combined.

“When you’re building a team and trying to continue to get better as the season gets longer in February, you need guys to step in and help you,” Cassara said. “And he’s had some games where he hasn’t played at all. He was willing to keep working hard at practice, had a real positive attitude and he came out and did a great job for us tonight.”

(Aside in case any of the dopes who work for the NCAA stumbled over here: We don’t actually have copies of the Defiantly Dutch board game to offer Jules, McLendon or any other student-athlete at Hofstra, or a Defiantly Dutch board game at all, though if we did, it would be bitchin’ and feature as many trivia questions about Scrubs as it did Hofstra basketball. So don’t go mounting a two-year investigation about impermissible benefits, you buttheads)

Mike Moore (16 points) recovered from a slow start to hit four of his final five shots from the field, pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds and single-handedly kept the Dutchmen in the game when it appeared as if Northeastern was about to pull away around the midway point of the second half: Moore scored all six Dutchmen points in a span of 2:36, the last of which he recorded when he grabbed Hofstra’s second offensive rebound of the possession and hit a layup to pull the Dutchmen within 66-54 and begin their game-ending run with 9:02 to play.

“I told Mike Moore walking off the court [the win was] really a credit to him—he was very vocal in the huddle, he just kept saying ‘Hey, we’re OK, we’ve gotta keep driving the ball, be aggressive.’” Cassara said. “Mike really attacked the basket well and a lot of credit goes to him. He really hung in there. And for Mike to get 11 rebounds tonight when we played small a lot, it’s really a credit to his hard work and real determination to kind of will us to win.”

“Coming into this game, rebounding [had been] a problem on our team,” Moore said. “I challenged the big men and told them I was going to be the lead rebounder today. And hey, look what happened.”

In many ways, though, what happened wasn’t so easily explainable. Jenkins, aka “The Wolf,” created at least as many problems as he solved: He set a career high by missing five free throws—including all three after he was fouled on a 3-point attempt midway through the first half—and an unofficial career high by missing at least three assignments on defense.

Jenkins could have cost the Dutchmen the game by allowing Joel Smith to get free on a backdoor layup, but Greg Washington managed to block Smith’s shot and the ball went out of bounds off Smith. “[He was] kind of like ‘God, help me,’” Jenkins said with a laugh.

Washington, who finally snapped his scoreless streak with eight points, also prevented Northeastern from taking the lead on its previous possession, when he forced Allen into an errant 3-pointer as the shot clock expired, and combined with David Imes to collapse on Ryan Pierson beyond the arc as the Huskies’ freshman desperately tried to create a final shot as the final six seconds ticked off the clock.

“I’ve said a lot: A lot of Greg Washington’s efforts and contributions don’t show up in the stat sheet,” Cassara said. “He changes a lot of shots, he affects a lot of shots He did a great job hedging out a couple times. He contested a couple shots on the 3-point line, that’s hard to do.”

So, too, was figuring out the exact locale of The Line. But better to be on the other side of it, regardless of how the Flying Dutchmen got there.

“I told our team in the locker room that the thing I’m most proud of is the facet that we never give up,” Cassara said. “I think the last five games we’ve been down at halftime. And this team believes—even in the huddle when we were down seven or eight points there with seven, eight minutes [left], they were bonding together and found a way to win.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Northeastern, 2/5)

3: Mike Moore

2: Brad Kelleher

1: Charles Jenkins

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 60

Mike Moore 31

Greg Washington 21

David Imes 15

Brad Kelleher 5

Shemiye McLendon 5

Dwan McMillan 5

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 76, Northeastern 67 (Or: Come as you are, or don’t come at all)

Bostonian Peter Wolf sums up the Flying Dutchmen's philosophy Saturday at Northeastern!

Throughout the second half of the Flying Dutchmen’s 76-67 victory over Northeastern Saturday afternoon in The Greatest City Ever (sorry New York it’s true) I figured that Mo Cassara would have a lot of flaws to pick apart during his postgame press conference.

Sure, it was a win—the Dutchmen’s fourth in the CAA without a defeat, which, as you may or may not know, HAS HOFSTRA ALL ALONE IN FIRST PLACE WHOO WHOO—but it wasn’t one without blemishes. The Dutchmen let Northeastern, a rebuilding squad which is winless in the CAA, hang around—their lead hovered between four and 10 points from the 19:24 mark of the second half through the 3:12 mark—and had a few hiccups in shot selection and on defense that could have made things really interesting if they were facing a more experienced team.

But the Cassara who sat at the podium in the Northeastern weight room (seriously, and that was awesome, I love Boston and its ancient sports buildings crammed into small places) was all smiles. There are wins in which a coach can be a hardass and hammer points home afterward, and wins in which he and his players just enjoy the moment. And Saturday, for many reasons, was the latter.

A mere four conference games into his career—and we should note here that he currently has the highest winning percentage in CAA play OF ANY COACH EVER—and Cassara already understands that any league road win is a good one. Nobody cares about style points, especially in a season in which Old Dominion has already lost at Delaware, both James Madison and VCU have already lost at Georgia State and in which only one team—PS: It’s Hofstra—is unbeaten through four games.

Then of course there was the whole 11-hour bus ride thing. The Dutchmen barely spent more time in Boston than it took to get there. They arrived at 1:30 am, had an 8 am wakeup call and played a nooner, all with a lean roster (Dwan McMillan was out for a fourth straight game) that was barely 60 hours removed from the cathartic win over George Mason. And as much as we love Matthews Arena, that place Saturday afternoon—with “989” people in attendance and the only ones making noise the student section crowding both sidelines—was an environment that invites a letdown.

All that and the Dutchmen hit five of their first six shots—every starter got into the box score except Charles Jenkins, a.k.a. The Man Amen—to race out to an 11-4 lead at the first media timeout. They shot 53 percent from the field, the third straight time they’ve shot at least 48 percent after reaching that mark just once in their first 12 games, and tied a season high by shooting 57 percent from beyond the arc.

Five players scored in double figures for the second straight game, pretty impressive considering it happened a grand total of three times in the previous 148 games. The starting five scored all but four of the Dutchmen’s points and played 178 out of a possible 200 minutes. And the Dutchmen were the definition of fundamentally sound by recording 20 assists on 25 field goals and hitting 18 of 20 free throws.

“I knew it was going to go one way or the other,” Cassara said. “Either we were going to come out today and just say ‘it’s us against the world,’ and we did that, or it was going to be ‘hey, we’re flat and we’re going to make excuses.’ But these guys have been through so much and they’ve found a way and they’ve bounded together.

“Listen, we’re doing it with guys who can’t play right now, guys who are hurt, different guys all the time. Just really proud of the effort.”

Jenkins ended up with his usual stuffed stat line (a team-high 20 points, seven assists and three steals) but Greg Washington, David Imes and Mike Moore were just as valuable. Imes capped his resurgent week with his third double-double of the year (11 points, 10 rebounds). He had 35 points and 26 rebounds in the three conference wins last week after collecting just 23 points and 20 rebounds in his previous five games combined.

“He’s been incredibly resilient,” Cassara said. “He’s bought in and he’s gotten better and better. He does a lot of things that don’t show up, too. I thought he did a terrific job on some post defense tonight, got a couple great rebounds for us, made a couple great layups around the basket. He continues to develop.”

Washington was 6-of-15 from the field—the 15 field goal attempts were a career-high exceeding his previous best by three—and scored a season-high 14 points. He also had five rebounds and has 11 boards in his last two games after picking up just 12 rebounds in the preceding five games. He is also 22-of-38 from the field in his last five games, which works out to 58 percent—a smidge better than Jenkins, albeit in far fewer attempts (Jenkins is 31-for-56 in his last five games, 55 percent).

“I thought he gave us a great effort tonight,” Cassara said. “He had a lot of good looks and some of them just didn’t go in. But he also battled, he got five rebounds.”

Moore had 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including 4-of-5 from 3-point land—his best performance of the year, percentage wise, from beyond the arc. Brad Kelleher was just 2-of-6 from the field, but got into double figures by hitting all six of his free throws in the final 3:12.

“Speaks volumes about our development,” Cassara said about the five players with at least 10 points. “We’re getting different efforts from different guys. Tonight, some great lines across the board. If we can continue to do that, we’re going to have a chance to win a lot of games.”

Sure, a couple of Washington’s shots were ill-advised—including one with plenty of time left on the shot clock and the Dutchmen trying to burn clock with just over a minute remaining—and the Dutchmen pulled down just five offensive rebounds (three of which were the team variety) compared to 19 defensive rebounds for Northeastern. The Huskies also outscored the Dutchmen in the paint, 32-22, and hit three straight uncontested 3-pointers in turning a 17-12 deficit into a 21-21 tie in a two-minute span in the first half.

But those were issues to discuss on another day. On Saturday afternoon, at the end of a week that went better than anyone could have possibly imagined, Cassara and the Dutchmen had earned the right to just enjoy a win—on what turned out to be a far shorter trip home.

“What I told the team in the locker room is we have every excuse not to win this game—we could say we had a bad bus trip and it took us [11 hours to get there],” Jenkins said. “But the reality is we still have to play basketball. As a basketball player, if someone’s coming at you, you’ve got to [play]. And I think that’s what we did tonight.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Northeastern, 1/8)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: David Imes

1: Greg Washington

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 40

Mike Moore 17

David Imes 12

Greg Washington 9

Dwan McMillan 5

Brad Kelleher 3

Shemiye McClendon 2

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 73, Northeastern 62 (Or: In which for the first time ever a Tom Pecora Q&A serves as a game recap)

And I had a whole riff based on More Than A Feeling ready to go and everything. Damn you paying work!

No wordy intro from me today, just an apology that this took so long to post. Thanks to Tom for taking the time to chat Thursday afternoon. More coming later tonight!

After coming so close to knocking off an upper-tier team this season, what does it mean to finally close out a big win on the road over a top team like this?

A few years ago, I probably would have been riding Charles for turning the ball over all the time. I just let him play through it and he had the confidence and he was able to make the plays at the end of the game to help us win. The way we won recently on the road—at Delaware, at Madison, at Towson early in the year—we won by double figures on the road and we found a way to go win another road game by double digits. We were able to build off those past experiences.

Is this the biggest regular season win for the program since the days of Loren Stokes, Carlos Rivera and Antoine Agudio?

I’m so bad with that stuff. [SID] Jeremy [Kniffin] would be a better answer. But yeah, the one that sticks in my mind is going to Old Dominion and they had a long winning streak when we had Stokes, Rivera and Agudio and we won at ODU. That was a great one. This was an important one for us because we wanted to have an opportunity to have a winning record in conference and this gives us that, if we win Saturday. And also, if we win Saturday, it probably makes us the hottest team going into the tournament.

The term we used before the game was ’40 minutes,  our will to win.’ We can’t play 20 minutes against them. At our place we didn’t play the second half the way we’re capable of playing. Everybody stayed on task [Tuesday] and especially [with] the defensive effort in the second half. And [as for Jenkins] hey, look, that’s what the great ones do, take over a game when we need them to win.

The win might not have been possible without Halil Kanacevic’s performance, particularly in the first half. How impressed were you with him playing so well in such a big road game as a freshman?

We kid around: How scary is he going to be when he’s a senior if he can do that kind of stuff as a front court player as a freshman? I think him and Chaz might negate [each other] for Rookie of the Year and [Drexel’s Chris] Fouch might win it. I couldn’t only put one of them on the ballot. I’d rather have both of them be all-rookie team than have one of them win it and the other not be on the rookie team. He’s just—they’ve both been great.

How pleased were you with Cornelius Vines on defense and what in particular did the team do so well overall on defense in the second half?

I was very pleased with [Vines] defending Janning and doing a great job. Janning shot 3-of-13. And [Vines is] a different player and we’re a different team when he’s making shots early in the game because it creates such space offensively when they have to worry about him well beyond the arc. And that really gave an opportunity to Chaz to get into the lane and wreck havoc.

We really took it to another level defensively [in the second half]. We stayed disciplined, we didn’t bail them out of any possessions with silly fouls or jump shot fouls late in the clock. We made them beat us over the top and we really kept the ball in front of us.

Did you sense the momentum change when Chaisson Allen missed that free throw that would have given them a 62-61 lead?

I really thought when Charles missed the two [technical free throws] on the other end—I was like oh man, instead of us going up [six], we’re only going to be up [four]. But the worm turned after that.

Your goals are obviously not all met yet, but how proud are you of the team and your coaching staff in terms of how everyone has been able to turn this season around?

I’m very, very proud of them. The thing I said to them—and this goes from Van [Macon] to our GAs [graduate assistants] every time in staff meetings was ‘Guys, we’ve just got to grind it out. They can’t see that we’re rattled. We’re just going to grind it out and push them and good things will happen.’ And I truly believe that. Sometimes, as a coach, you kind of convince yourself of it. But I think this is as good a job as my staff has ever done. They’ve really done a wonderful job to get us where we’re at now. And hopefully that can continue.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Northeastern, 2/23)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Halil Kanacevic

1: Cornelius Vines

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 60

Chaz Williams 27

Halil Kanacevic 22

Miklos Szabo 21

Nathaniel Lester 19

Cornelius Vines 15

Greg Washington 15

Yves Jules 1

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

Northeastern 75, Hofstra 55 (Or: NU’s train kept a-rollin…)

Way back when they were getting along, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were singing about fellow Bostonians Northeastern.

The end result Saturday wasn’t surprising, not even to those of us who are as bipolar on the keyboard as the Flying Dutchmen have been on the basketball court. Sure, three wins in eight days had me—err, us—stepping away from the ledge and investigating just how long it takes to drive to Richmond and wondering the Dutchmen would be sent in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. But even I—err, we—realized the scope of the task against a Northeastern squad that is road-tested and playing as well as anyone in the CAA.

But to partake in the scene in the few minutes before and after the opening tap was to be shocked at the sight of the Dutchmen’s second-stringers pressing against Northeastern’s second-stringers in the waning minutes, as well as that of Tom Pecora sitting alone at the podium following a 75-55 loss that ranked as the program’s most lopsided home defeat in more than 14 years.

In the moments leading up to the introduction of the Dutchmen’s starting lineup, the five players—with Charles Jenkins at the center—swayed to the music blaring out of the Arena’s speakers. Cornelius Vines did exaggerated jumps as he neared center court, as if he was on a diving board preparing to land the world’s biggest cannonball, before he turned towards the Lions Den and waved his arms enthusiastically.

And then the Dutchmen opened with a sensational five minute burst in which they raced out to a 15-2 lead, got off 15 shot attempts, crashed the boards to the tune of a 13-3 advantage and forced Northeastern to miss its first six shots from the field. Jenkins punctuated a 3-pointer with one of his patented whirling fist pumps, and seconds later, Huskies coach Bill Coen had to use a timeout even though the first media timeout was less than a minute away.

It would have been foolish to expect a wire-to-wire rout by the Dutchmen, but victory—not just any victory, but the long-awaited Signature Win—was certainly close enough to grab. Pecora would be flanked during post-game interviews by Jenkins and Greg Washington, the smiles of the three men stretching from one end of the interview room to the other as they talked about a season turned almost completely around in a 10-day span.

Except Northeastern coolly scored the next 16 points in a span of less than four minutes and outscored the Dutchmen 73-40 in the final 34-plus minutes. The game didn’t turn lopsided right away: The Dutchmen actually withstood the Huskies’ first flurry and entered the half with a 32-30 lead as well as a 30-12 rebounding advantage.

The 3,417 in attendance expected a classic final 20 minutes, but the Huskies dominated every second of the second half as they suffocated the Dutchmen on defense and displayed ruthless efficiency and crispness on offense.

The Dutchmen missed their first 11 shots of the second half, didn’t score from the field until almost 10 minutes had passed and didn’t break double digits until the 5:18 mark. Miklos Szabo had a brilliant first half (nine points and six rebounds in 19 minutes) but was limited to one point and two boards in just nine minutes the rest of the way. Greg Washington, who had five points and six rebounds despite just playing seven minutes in the first half due to early foul trouble, missed all five of his shots in the second half, though he did pull down four rebounds.

“Our big guys were getting driven away,” Pecora said. “Their bigs just kind of drove us out of what we call prime time, and we were making all our catches at eight and 10 feet instead of four and six feet. That’s something that we had talked about at halftime. They were definitely the more physical team.”

In addition, Charles Jenkins took just four shots in the second half and had just 11 shots overall, barely half the 20 shots Pecora wants him to take every game. Jenkins had almost as many points from the free throw line (six) as from the field (eight).

“We can get away with that against some of the lesser teams, but against the best teams, he’s got to rise to the occasion and make plays,” Pecora said. “We don’t have the overall balance [the Huskies] do. We’re not going to get a number of people [involved]. We want to get Charles touches because he is the catalyst for our offense.”

The Huskies, meanwhile, shot a blistering 57 percent in the second half. Manny Adako and Chaisson Allen filled up the boxscore—the duo, who combined to score just five points in the first half, outscored the Dutchmen 17-3 by themselves during a span of 6:35—but it was Matt Janning who earned a Wayne Gretzky comparison from Pecora by flawlessly setting up the two for high-percentage shots.

“Well, I think they showed why they’ve won 13 of their last 14 in the second half,” Pecora said. “We had talked at halftime about the first five minutes—I knew Billy would get on them about the rebounding advantage we had and they would come out a little fired up.”

The Huskies spent the final 10 minutes taking the air out of the ball, hoisting just nine shots in that span as they made it all but impossible for the Dutchmen to regain any momentum. The Dutchmen scored consecutive baskets just once, at which point Coen called a timeout with 9:35 left and Northeastern still up 50-40.

“Their patience and their pose running [their] offense—they’re very comfortable scoring at the end of the shot clock,” Pecora said. “So once they extended their lead…”

Northeastern’s dominating victory provided sobering proof of how large the gap is between the Dutchmen and the top teams in the league. The Dutchmen are 0-8 against the six teams ahead of them in the standings. They opened January by losing to William & Mary and George Mason by a combined five points but have dropped their last six games to upper-echelon teams by an average of 13.7 points.

The loss Saturday might finally have shifted Pecora’s focus to the future. Pecora hasn’t been afraid to blister the Dutchmen following defeats nor to hold one-sided closed door meetings with players, but he sounded Saturday as if he’s just about done raising his voice.

With eight players scheduled to return next season—as well as redshirts Paul Bilbo and Mike Moore and, who the hell knows, maybe even Brad Kelleher—a gentler touch will be necessary as the Dutchmen try to build a foundation and generate some confidence.

“There’s teams in the past I might ride real hard for two days,” Pecora said. “I think we’re too far down the line for that with this group. They have to have some pride in the fact that somebody came in here and beat their tails in pretty good.”

And while Pecora is certainly still playing for this season and the hope the Dutchmen get hot at the right time and mount a Cinderella run in Richmond, the lineup as time expired—senior Cornelius Vines, Washington, reserve junior Nathaniel Lester and freshmen Chaz Williams and Yves Jules, the latter of whom didn’t play until the final 4:02—spoke volumes for the approach the rest of the way.

“We have things to work on the last two minutes of that game,” Pecora said. “I want them to work on full court trap and things that we need to get better at…I want our young guys to experience certain things, so when it matters, we’re better at it.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Northeastern, 2/6)

3: Miklos Szabo

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Halil Kanacevic

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 46

Chaz Williams 24

Miklos Szabo 20

Halil Kanacevic 20

Nathaniel Lester 18

Greg Washington 12

Cornelius Vines 9

Yves Jules 1

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

Hofstra 57, Northeastern 52 (Or: In which I become the Drew Bledsoe to Sully Ray’s Tom Brady)

I know how you feel, Drew.

I’ve figured out what was missing for the Flying Dutchmen. Or, actually, what wasn’t missing.

Me.

Two weeks ago today, I went to Boston to watch the Flying Dutchmen play unbeaten Northeastern. The Dutchmen trailed from start to finish and lost by 23 in one of the bleakest performances of the Tom Pecora era. So Saturday, I was in Boston to not watch or listen to the Flying Dutchmen play unbeaten Northeastern, and with Sully Ray pinch-blogging (and, he says, catching a T-shirt while holding two hot dogs in his other hand…absent any photographic evidence, I’ll have to declare he’s full of it and I maintain my 2-0 lead), the Dutchmen win, 57-52.

(You know what I did watch though? VCU-ODU. Apparently, you can watch two Virginia-based schools on television in Boston, but not a Boston-based school vs. a New York-based school. OK then. Hopefully I can see New Hampshire vs. Maine once I get home)

(Second parenthetical tangent: You want uncanny, go check out Litos’ predicted final score for Saturday)

Furthermore, I realized, in typing this, that the Dutchmen are actually 3-0 in games when I do not watch or listen to them. They won the final two games of the Charleston Classic. So the guy who has written tens of thousands of words wondering what might be wrong with the Dutchmen is actually the reason WHY something might be wrong with the Dutchmen. Coming soon: Sully Ray waxing nostalgic about the days when he used to sniff chemicals in The Chronicle darkroom and re-telling stories of how I snored the entire time during our road trip for spring break ’95.

Anyway, before the Dutchmen ride Sully Ray all the way to the CAA championship and I follow in the footsteps of another Bostonian and get traded to upstate New York—where I figure I’ll blog about Tom Parrotta and Chris Gadley—I will say I got at least one thing right: The whole gotta-prove-the-disgusted-parent-wrong thing. I never figured Pecora and Van Macon were giving up on the Dutchmen after the uncompetitive loss to Drexel Wednesday, but they had to figure that speaking as strongly as they did would make the Dutchmen particularly mad and prideful.

Hey, with the knowledge my you-know-what would be grounded as soon as the report cards arrived, I followed the failing of Algebra II during the second marking period of my junior year of high school by getting an A-minus on the mid-year exam. Oh, that’s right. I was an equal opportunity flunker.

Where was I? Oh yes.

The Dutchmen also provided another reminder Saturday why they are the perfect symbol of an unpredictable conference. Litos wrote last week Hofstra would come up with as many head-scratching wins as losses, but I doubt even he thought he’d be proven right IN CONSECUTIVE GAMES. The Dutchmen, in a span of three games, have thrown a scare into the preseason favorite, trailed wire-to-wire for the second time this season against a team picked to finish 11th in the conference and knocked off the unbeaten—and previously unchallenged—co-leader. This stuff is for the sadistic, I tell you.

Anyone who says he pegged how the playing time would shake out Saturday is either a liar or the only person on the planet who predicted a Cardinals-Steelers Super Bowl. Darren Townes, on a milk carton for weeks, started and played 28 minutes, one more minute than he’d played in the last four games combined. Arminas Urbutis played 31 minutes and pulled down nine rebounds after playing 32 minutes and collecting eight rebounds in the first five games of the month.

Greg Washington, who’d started the last six games, didn’t start and played a season-low three minutes. Dane Johnson, who’d started four straight games, didn’t play at all.

Nathaniel Lester made his first start of the season, shot just 1-of-9 from the field yet played a season-high 36 minutes and led the Dutchmen and set career highs with five assists (half as many assists as he had in the first 17 games) and three steals (one more than he had in his first 17 games). Greg Johnson had two assists, one steal and no turnovers, but played just 18 minutes (his minutes this month, by the way: 34-37-38-40-22-18).

Tony Dennison, who entered the game shooting 33 percent from the field and 58 percent from the line, hit both his field goal attempts and was 4-of-6 from the line in scoring nine points. Cornelius Vines, who was one of only two players to start the first 17 games, came off the bench and played a season-low nine minutes—none, according to the in-game thread at the CAA Zone, after he chucked up an ill-advised three.

And Charles Jenkins, whose field goal percentage lately (27 percent—35-for-129—in his previous nine games) has been somewhere south of the outgoing president’s approval ratings, finally came back and played his most complete game in weeks. Jenkins bounced back from a 3-of-9 performance over the first 20 minutes to make five of his seven shots in the second half and five of his six free throws in a clutch performance straight out of November.

Jenkins scored seven straight points for the Dutchmen and nine overall in a 12-1 run that turned a 32-28 deficit into a 40-33 lead and hit two free throws to give Hofstra the lead for good at 52-51 in the final minute. In addition, he was also credited with shutting down Northeastern’s biggest weapon, Matt Janning.

The win wasn’t a thing of beauty: The Dutchmen didn’t hit a field goal in the final 6:41 but held on by hitting 11 of their last 13 free throws. Nor did the Dutchmen escape unscathed: Miklos Szabo hurt his arm in the second half and was wearing a sling on the bench.

In addition, Sully Ray reports, via text, that it was a “…great game by none, good game by all.” That’s why I like Sully Ray: He’s a calm, collected sort whose approach to life is a cliché. Had I been there Saturday, I probably would have come up with multiple reasons why the Dutchmen are now headed for the Final Four. Except, of course, Northeastern would have won by 74.

And sure, the Dutchmen might have taken advantage of a wiped Northeastern team. Oh well. Fair is fair. Playing the Huskies in Boston 53 hours after facing Drexel on Long Island wasn’t a whole lot of fun, either.

So where do the Dutchmen—now 3-4 and a mere game out of a first-round bye, it’s never too early to look too far ahead!—go from here? The hell if I know. The last three games have proven how impossible it is to project three weeks ahead, but I will say the schedule lines up nicely for Hofstra to make a charge over the next 22 days—something I’ll blog about in the next day or two.

If I were a betting man, though, I’d bet all Pecora wants for his birthday is me not paying any attention Wednesday night. And I’d also wager the Dutchmen would be in great shape if I sold the blog to Sully Ray. My asking price begins at one million dollars.

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

Northeastern 73, Hofstra 50 (Or: Can Stuart Smalley fit in one more appointment before he starts his new job?)

The Dutchmen need to repeat after Stuart: They're good enough, they're smart enough and gosh darnit people still like them to win the CAA.

So let’s get the positives of Monday night out of the way, shall we? I once again vanquished the city of Boston and its draconian meter maids by snagging a perfect parking spot right by my destination, which in this case was Matthews Arena.

Of course, it wasn’t an easy victory, because nothing worth having—particularly parking spots in Boston, which sheds metered spots at a quicker rate than American media companies shed journalists—is easy.

And it was not without temptation, as in, I’m tempted to just pay out my you-know-what just to be done with this ordeal. But as I always do, I realized it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle of the thing and not falling victim to the devious plan concocted by the city and the proprietors of parking garages and lots. After all: The fewer spots there are, the more likely you are to pay out your you-know-what just to be done with the ordeal.

It was $19 to park in the Matthews Arena parking lot Monday (it was almost completely empty, take that!) or $8 for three hours in the garage across the street. Of course, that’s an introductory-level course in getting screwed compared to what happens a mile or two away at Fenway Park, where, as of 2007, the neighborhood parking lots charged anywhere from $35 to your firstborn for a spot. And that’s why I’d drive around and around the neighborhood, only occasionally punching the steering wheel and spewing four-letter words, in constant search of a metered spot.

And that’s why I was perfectly willing Monday night to drive on to St. Botolph Street, see no spots, circle around, still see no spots, drive further down St. Botolph Street, still see no spots, hang a right on to the dead end that housed the parking garage, see some big stupid jerk getting out of his car in a spot that was occupied two minutes earlier, curse the parking gods, drive down Massachusetts Avenue, curse the lack of non-resident parking, turn around, go back from whence I came, turn left on to St. Botolph Street and…see TWO SPOTS OPEN across from Matthews Arena!! BLESS YOU PARKING GODS!

I wedged myself in between a car and a snow bank, patted myself on the back, reached my seat in three minutes (well, I mean, it did take me two-and-a-half hours of driving just to get within three minutes of my seat) and hoped it was a sign of things to come.

It wasn’t. I should have taken a picture of the nifty parallel parking job (then again, that might just be weird), because it was all downhill from that point on for anyone connected to or rooting for Hofstra.

The only good thing to say about Northeastern 73, Hofstra 50 (that's from The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald recap is here) is that it has to be rock bottom…right? The Flying Dutchmen committed four turnovers before even taking a shot. They turned the ball over on seven of their first nine possessions and finished with 25 turnovers. Tom Pecora benched four-fifths of the starting lineup—everyone except Greg Johnson, how’s that for something that was inconceivable even a week ago—a mere 2:35 into the game.

Northeastern had its way down low—they out-rebounded the Dutchmen 39-32 and received 38 points and 11 rebounds from their starting front court—despite Hofstra’s size advantage. The most telling image of the Huskies’ dominance: Manny Adako drove the lane past three Dutchmen for a dunk in the first half.

No Dutchmen scored in double figures, the first time that’s happened in eight seasons under Pecora. For the second straight game, the Dutchmen were limited to 18 points in the first half. They closed within single digits just twice after falling behind 11-0 and trailed wire-to-wire for the second straight game. (At some point today, now that my eyes aren’t glazed over after spending eight hours in a car, I’ll try to figure out the last time that happened)

More inconceivability (wow, that’s a word, awesome): Johnson—whose nickname during the OOC should have been Milk Carton—led the Dutchmen in minutes for the second straight game. Speaking of milk cartons, the Dutchmen lineup after the final media timeout consisted entirely of guys who have been buried in the rotation at some point this season: Johnson, Nathaniel Lester, Zygis Sestakos, Darren Townes and Greg Washington.

The game ended in appropriate fashion as the Dutchmen tried to create one more shot yet dribbled out the clock instead. Tony Dennison found an open David Vallins, who passed up an open 3-point look (and the pleas of “SHOOT IT!” from the Hofstra faithful that wanted to see the walk-on net his first career points) with two seconds left and dished the ball to Sestakos, who didn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.

This is a confused team lacking any sort of cohesion or confidence right now. Even with more turnovers (five) than assists (four) Monday, Johnson is providing some semblance of stability at the point. But there’s still no flow on that side of the ball.

The Dutchmen struggle to produce anything when Charles Jenkins and Cornelius Vines—who set and tied a season-low in shots attempted Monday with nine and eight, respectively—are shut down. Possessions lately seem to end one pass too early or one pass too late. Dane Johnson had the best line of the night for the Dutchmen (eight rebounds and six points on 3-of-3 shooting), but even he seemed tentative down low.

Jenkins is a mess and it’s painful to watch a player who was bursting with such positive momentum just a few weeks ago. Jenkins made just one of those nine field goal attempts and scored a career-low three points as his streak of double-digit efforts ended at 28. He sat out the final 5:10 in what amounted to a mental health day move by Pecora.

In Jenkins’ defense, it’s as if the refs are misreading “22” as “KICK ME.” For the second straight game, he had two baskets waved off due to charging calls. I swear, I haven’t seen charging called as much as it’s been called the last two games. Probably blog bias, I admit.

During timeouts Monday, Pecora would gather with his assistants for a few seconds before heading to the huddle. And by the end of the game, he would open his address to the players by…just staring at them for a few seconds, as if to say “What is there to say?”

This is the biggest challenge Pecora’s ever encountered as Hofstra head coach. He’s overseen rebuilding eras (his first three seasons) as well as what appeared to be a transition season last year. But he’s never had to rebuild a team’s shattered psyche in midseason. I know it’s official now that Al Franken has a new day job, but maybe he can send Stuart Smalley out to Hempstead to give the Dutchmen a giant dose of self-affirmation.

Sounds crazy, sure. But Monday night proved that it’s easier to find a parking spot in Boston than a cure to what’s ailing the Dutchmen.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.