Keep It Perky: Princeton

Unfortunately, Joshua DeCady and the Dutchmen could not pull the Homer.

When I said this season was a honeymoon season, I didn’t expect to be tested so quickly. Oh well. The bid for the first unbeaten campaign in program history ended in stunning fashion Thursday night, when the Flying Dutchmen frittered away a 10-point lead in the final 91 seconds of a 60-58 loss to Princeton. Yeah well that’s still a clown college so there.

As will hopefully remain the case for the rest of the season, here’s the Keep It Perky featuring the usual postgame boilerplate material. (Fun fact: this is the first post-loss Keep it Perky since Feb. 18! Let’s try to go another nine months before the next one) The individual news and notes from the loss to the Tigers and a preview of Arizona State will be posted tomorrow. Enjoy!

THE MOST RECENT GAME SUMMARIZED IN ONE PARAGRAPH

The Dutchmen led for 22-plus consecutive minutes but committed four turnovers in the final 1:19 as Princeton completed a stunning comeback. After ending the first half on an 11-2 run to take a 30-23 lead, the Dutchmen kept Princeton at arm’s reach and led by as many as 12 before Justin Moore sank a pair of free throws to put the Dutchmen up 55-45 with 1:31 remaining. But Princeton scored on its final six possessions, during which it turned the four Dutchmen turnovers into 10 points. Two of the turnovers were on in-bounds passes beneath the Hofstra basket while another one happened when Joshua DeCady slipped in front of the Dutchmen basket before he was slid into by Princeton’s Jack Stanton as well as teammate Nick Jefferson. Folks, college hoops is BACK. Tanner Thomas (14 points, nine rebounds) flirted with a double-double again but committed four turnovers, including the first of Princeton’s game-ending surge. Nick Jefferson had 10 points, two assists and, yup, four turnovers. Moore finished with 12 points, eight rebounds and a team-high four assists, but he was just 5-of-16 shooting — including 0-for-6 from 3-point land — while also adding, you guessed it, four turnovers. 

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Princeton, 11/5)

3: Tanner Thomas

2: Nick Jefferson

1: Justin Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Tanner Thomas 3

Nick Jefferson 3

Trey Boyd III 3

Joshua DeCady 2

Justin Moore 1

THE FLYING DUTCHMEN AFTER TWO GAMES

As you may have gathered by now, the Dutchmen fell to 1-1 with Thursday night’s loss. This ties the 2026-27 team for the 30th-best record in school history through two games. Forty-four other teams began 1-1, most recently the 2023-24 squad. Here is how some notable Hofstra teams have fared through two games:

NCAA TOURNAMENT TEAMS

1975-76: 1-1

1976-77: 2-0

1999-2000: 1-1

2000-01: 2-0

2019-20 (it still counts to us): 1-1

2026-27 (IT HAS HAPPENED!!!!): 0-2

NIT TEAMS

2005-06: 1-1

2006-07: 0-2

2015-16: 2-0

2018-19: 1-1

2022-23: 2-0

NCAA DIVISION II TOURNAMENT TEAMS

1958-59: 1-1

1961-62: 1-1

1962-63: 1-1

1963-64: 2-0

Some other notable two-game starts:

2021-22: 1-1 (Win in second game was Speedy Claxton’s first as head coach)

2020-21: 1-1 (Win in second game was Mike Farrelly’s first as head coach)

2010-11: 1-1 (Loss in second game was Mo Cassara’s first as head coach)

2001-02: 2-0 (Tom Pecora improves to 2-0)

1994-95: 1-1 (Win in second game was Jay Wright’s first as head coach, guess we’ll keep him)

1988-89: 1-1 (Loss in second game was Butch van Breda Kolff’s first in his second stint as head coach)

1980-81: 2-0 (Dick Berg improves to 2-0)

1979-80: 1-1 (Win in second game was Joe Harrington’s first as head coach)

1962-63: 1-1 (Loss in second game was Paul Lynner’s first as head coach)

1955-56: 2-0 (Butch van Breda Kolff improves to 2-0)

1947-48: 2-0 (Frank Reilly improves to 2-0)

1946-47: 1-1 (Loss in second game was Jack McDonald’s first in his second stint as head coach)

1943-44: 1-1 (Win in second game was Jack Smith’s first as head coach)

1936-37: 0-2 (Will we ever win a game?)

This feature is inspired by Mets superfan and blogger Greg Prince, who measures how the current Mets compare, record-wise, to previous teams through the same point in the season.

NUMBER TEN THROUGH ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY

With Thursday night’s loss, Speedy Claxton fell to 106-64 (.624) as head coach. That’s the third-best known winning percentage for a Hofstra coach through his first 170 games at the helm.

Butch van Breda Kolff I 129-41 (.759, 170th game was the 19th game of his seventh season in 1961-62) 

Frank Reilly 122-48 (.718, 170th game was the 14th game of his seventh season in 1953-54) 

SPEEDY CLAXTON 106-64 (.624, 170th game was the second game of his sixth season in 2026-27) 

Paul Lynner 102-68 (.600, 170th game was the 10th game of his seventh season in 1968-69) 

Tom Pecora 93-77 (.547, 170th game was the 17th game of his sixth season in 2006-07) 

Joe Mihalich 91-79 (.535, 170th game was the sixth game of his sixth season in 2017-18) 

Jay Wright 90-80 (.529, 170th game was the 25th game of his fifth season in 1998-99) 

Dick Berg 88-82 (.518, 170th game was the first game of his seventh season in 1986-87) 

Roger Gaeckler 81-89 (.476, 170th game was the 11th game of his seventh season in 1978-79) 

Butch van Breda Kolff II 79-91 (.465, 170th game was the 29th and final game of his sixth season in 1993-94 as well as the final game of his college coaching career) 

Game no. 170 is a historic one for Hofstra as Butch van Breda Kolff goes out a winner with a thrilling 88-86, double overtime win over Northeastern Illinois in the 1994 ECC championship game in Buffalo. I didn’t even know what FOMO meant back then but boy have I learned over the last 32 years how this should have been the definition of it. Then again, I did see Bryan Adams perform these 11 songs, amongst many others, so once again I have that going for me. Van Breda Kolff’s second go-around as the Flying Dutchmen’s head coach is the seventh-longest coaching stint in school history. 

The records are incomplete for Jack McDonald’s first stint from 1936 through 1943 as well as the tenure of Jack Smith (1943-46).

Smith finished 27-32 in his three seasons while Mo Cassara finished 38-59 in his three seasons. Three coaches had one-season tenures lasting at Hofstra. McDonald went 18-6 in the lone season of his second stint in 1946-47 while Joe Harrington went 14-14 in 1979-80 and Mike Farrelly went 13-10 in 2020-21.