Different situation leads Kanacevic elsewhere

With the coach who recruited him to Hofstra no longer patrolling the sidelines, Halil Kanacevic is ready to follow Tom Pecora out the door. Photo from the Daily News.

Halil Kanacevic was in the front row for Tim Welsh’s introductory press conference Apr. 1, symbolically seated next to Charles Jenkins—the Flying Dutchmen’s leading rebounder and their leading scorer listening to their new head coach.

But while Kanacevic looked—and, in interviews conducted that morning and the following week, sounded—like someone who planned to remain a core player at Hofstra in the post-Tom Pecora era, he was already uncertain about his future in Hempstead.

Kanacevic’s doubts grew stronger as the days passed and culminated last week with the freshman requesting and receiving a release from his scholarship and beginning the process of transferring to another school.

“When you sign a letter of intent, you want to play for Hofstra University or a certain university,” Kanacevic told Defiantly Dutch last night. “But anyone that knows the process knows the fact is that you’re really signing to play for a certain team and that you’re expecting to play for that coach. And when coach Pecora left, the fact [is] that I didn’t sign up for this situation, so I no longer felt comfortable.”

Kanacevic, who earned CAA all-rookie honors after averaging 8.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, said he was ready to ask for his release as soon as Pecora informed the team he was leaving for Fordham March 24, but athletic director Jack Hayes told players he wouldn’t grant a release to anyone until a new coach was in place. Once Welsh was hired, those around Kanacevic suggested he take his time making a decision.

Kanacevic expressed optimism, both in his public comments and his discussions with Welsh, because he didn’t want to generate any negative attention nor indicate he wanted to leave until he was positive he was ready to do so.

“I didn’t want to tell them ‘Hey guys, I’m thinking about this’ and at the end of the day it doesn’t happen,” Kanacevic said. “That might cause drama or conflict that you don’t want. When I finally decided that I was going to transfer, I sat down with couple of [people] and said ‘This is the deal.’ As the days went on, I told more [people] and I had my meetings with coach and then with Jack Hayes.”

Kanacevic said his biggest regret was telling Welsh earlier this month that he wasn’t thinking about transferring. “Someone gave me a little advice, talk to the coach, reassure him you’re not leaving,” Kanacevic said. “I was like ‘All right.’ I did that. I probably never should have done that, because I kind of lied to the coach [and gave him] the wrong impression [saying] ‘I’m not going anywhere’ as far as the rumors.

“He brought it up, when I had a meeting with coach Welsh, and I basically told him ‘Man, that was a mistake I made and I shouldn’t have done that to you. I misled you.’ He asked if there was a reason and it was the reason I told you—not the situation I signed up for.”

The most difficult part of the process for Kanacevic, meanwhile, was breaking the news to the teammates with whom he had grown close during his year on campus and leaving behind a squad that would likely be among the pre-season favorites if he remained in the fold.

“I don’t know if I’ll find guys like that ever again—guys like Charles, Nat, Greg, Dave, Yves, guys like that—I don’t think I’ll ever find guys like that to play with, such good people on and off the court,” Kanacevic said. “Some family people asked questions, like if they were so great, then why leave? But some of those guys, they’re only going to be [at Hofstra] for another year and then they’re on to their future.

“[Teammates] said ‘At the end of the day, you have to do what’s best for you.’ [There’s] talk about going to the NCAA Tournament, that is great and all, but at the end of the day, you don’t graduate with your team. You graduate alone. You’ve basically got to look out for yourself at the end of the day.”

Kanacevic’s release is of the “conditional” variety, meaning Hofstra has given him a list of schools—“about 10,” said Kanacevic—to which he cannot transfer. Kanacevic said he couldn’t reveal those schools, but that it includes those that are on Hofstra’s schedule over the next couple years.

“Jack Hayes said he does not want to play me in the future,” Kanacevic said.

A Hofstra spokesman indicated Friday the school would not discuss Kanacevic's possible departure, but prohibiting him from transferring to certain schools would be an arrangement similar to the one Rutgers had with Mike Rosario, who was also told he couldn’t transfer to a school that the Scarlet Knights would play next season.

As for Kanacevic, it is very likely, according to another source close to the situation, that Hofstra has declared Fordham off-limits as well as several other local schools.

Kanacevic hasn’t scheduled any official visits and can still technically return to Hofstra. But he said he expects to leave now that he has asked for his release.

“I’m not one to go back on my decision,” Kanacevic said. “I think that’s just something wrong to do, if you say you’re doing something [and then] ‘Oh I changed my mind.’ You don’t play with people like that. I don’t want to be played like that. It’s pretty evident that this is going to happen.”

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Fiery freshmen fuel Dutchmen

If I was better at Photoshop (and by that, I mean if I knew it at all) I would have put together a graphic with the head shots of Halil Kanacevic and Chaz Williams. Alas, I am not, so you get a movie poster!

Chaz Williams is a 5-foot-9 dynamo of a point guard who gave a verbal commitment to Hofstra as a high school sophomore. Halil Kanacevic is a 6-foot-8 power forward who specializes in the grunt work in the interior and who didn’t receive a scholarship offer from Hofstra until late in his senior season.

The differences between the two are obvious, but after impressive rookie seasons, so are the similarities. Playing with an intensity palpable from the stands and driven by their humble basketball upbringings, Williams and Kanacevic quickly proved ready for and not intimidated by Division I basketball as they emerged as core members of the Dutchmen.

Both players were named to the CAA All-Rookie team last night, only the third time since the conference expanded in 2001-02 that a school has had multiple All-Rookie members. Kanacevic led all freshmen in rebounding (7.6 per game) while Williams ranked second in scoring (9.8 per game).

“It’s been amazing,” Charles Jenkins said after a practice earlier this week. “For them to take the roles that they have on this team is big. They’ve both had stellar games this year where they led us to victory—the veterans didn’t play well and they came out and played well and got us a victory. It’s been very exciting to watch both of them grow as freshmen."

Tom Pecora has often said this season he was forced to rely more than expected on Williams and Kanacevic due to the unexpected absence of Brad Kelleher (thank you very much, Clearinghouse) and the early struggles of Miklos Szabo and Greg Washington. But it was also immediately clear he trusted the freshmen duo, each of whom played more than 30 minutes in the season opener at Kansas.

“Where I played [in high school], it was a small gym,” Kanacevic said Wednesday. “It was nothing compared to Kansas. That’s like a section of Kansas, my gym. It was great. Coach said ‘baptism by fire.’ It was a great experience, it helped me out a lot.”

“Playing against the number one team in the nation, playing in a place like that, it was a tremendous place to start,” Williams said. “Because now I look at it like ‘Hey, we played against two All-Americans. We should be [putting up] the same numbers we did then. Let’s go play.’”

Such passion has become a trademark for both players, who have an uncanny knack for flipping the switch just before the opening tip. During the introduction of starting lineups, Williams greets each player with an individual handshake, ending with a LeBron James-like exchange with Jenkins. But as the rest of his teammates stroll to center court, Williams walks to the basket nearest the Hofstra bench, gazes upward and performs the sign of the cross.

Then he goes out and mixes it up with players far bigger and heavier than him, appropriate actions for someone who has spoken often of how he feels he has something to prove every time he takes the court due to his height. Last week, Williams became tangled for a rebound in mid-air with Georgia State’s Ousman Krubally, who only had nine inches on Williams.

Kanacevic, meanwhile, said he remains relaxed all day long (“I could sleep the whole day before the game”) but sharpens his focus the moment the ball is tipped. He tied for fifth in the conference with five double-doubles and had perhaps his best game of the year in the upset of Northeastern 10 days ago, when he had 16 points and 11 rebounds while minimizing Huskies big men Manny Adako and Nkem Ojougboh.

Such performances are particularly impressive given how lightly recruited Kanacevic was out of Staten Island, which is the forgotten borough when it comes to city basketball. Kanacevic had some interest from low mid-majors before he led Curtis High School to the Class A championship—the first title ever won by a Staten Island school—last year. (Williams led his alma mater, Bishop Ford in Brooklyn, to its first state title as a junior)

Kanacevic admits he plays with a chip on his shoulder and expects perfection out of himself every time he takes the court. “Other than my family, basketball is basically the only thing I care about,” Kanacevic said with a laugh. “So if you lose a game or you make a bad play out there—coaches tell you forget about it, move on to the next play. It’s hard for me to forget about it. I still remember plays from my sophomore year, freshman year of high school. I just don’t like it. It drives me nuts, making mistakes.”

It hasn’t been a perfect season for either player, each of whom hit the freshman wall following the New Year. Kanacevic shot just 35 percent and didn’t record a single double-double over the seven games from Jan. 19 through Feb. 13.

He’s emerged from his funk as Williams has slumped. Williams is shooting just 26 percent (22-for-84) in his last eight games, a notable tailspin for someone who shot an almost unconscious 63 percent (26-for-41) from 3-point land over a 13-game span from Dec. 9 through Jan. 27. He was benched briefly by Pecora against Georgia State for taking a bad shot early in the first half.

Even as he has struggled, though, Williams has contributed in other areas. He tied a career high with 10 assists Saturday, has pulled down seven or more rebounds in four of his last six games and recorded more turnovers than assists just once in his last 13 games.

“I never felt tired at any point, I just wasn’t making shots,” Williams said. “I just felt like, OK, I guess this is the wall everybody talks about. Let me just get in the gym and make extra shots and get over this hump. Hopefully I get over it by this weekend.”

Despite their youth and the likelihood the Flying Dutchmen will be CAA contenders for the duration of their careers (unless of course Hofstra joins the A-10!), Kanacevic and Williams are both approaching the CAA Tournament with a sense of urgency.

“Like coach always says: ‘We’re not practicing to win, you’re practicing to win championships,’” Williams said. “That’s been coach’s motto all year, because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re all here for. Me and Halil are both trying to get Mikey Szabo and Cornelius Vines a championship.”

“We’ve just got to go with the mindset that no one is going to give us anything, we’ve got to take it,” Kanacevic said. “We’ll go in there with that approach, play hard, keep up what we’ve been doing and maybe [make a] little bit less mistakes. One and done situation—basically try to see [how] far we can go. Hopefully we win.”

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

The envelope please...

Twenty-three years later, will Matt Janning or Gerald Lee get revenge for Ozzie Smith over Andre Dawson?

Tom Pecora has high hopes for tonight’s CAA awards banquet.

“I’m hoping that Charles is the player of the year,” Pecora said after the Flying Dutchmen beat Georgia State in the regular season finale Saturday. “I’m hoping that Greg Washington and Cornelius Vines are on the all-defensive team and that Halil and Chaz are on the all-freshmen team. I think that would be the right thing, if it played out that way.”

My guess is Pecora won’t be too disappointed tonight, which speaks volumes for just how far the Dutchmen have come from their 2-7 start. Here are my picks for the Player of the Year, All-CAA teams, Rookie of the Year and All-CAA teams. Like Litos, I find it almost impossible to pick an all-defensive team. I think defense is something you have to see to appreciate, and I don’t watch nearly enough CAA games in person to make a pick there. My guess is Washington makes the team, Vines doesn’t and that Robert Nwankwo, who led the league in rebounding and blocked shots, wins defensive player of the year. (Edit: I apparently forgot the existence of Larry Sanders. Make it Sanders)

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Who should win: Charles Jenkins, Hofstra

Who will win: Matt Janning, Northeastern and Gerald Lee, ODU

Who will win the more I think about it: Jenkins

The closer we get to the awards ceremony, the more I think Jenkins is going to win it. He led the league in scoring, was almost two points per game ahead of his nearest competitor and was absolutely monstrous down the stretch (24.9 ppg in his last 10 games) in lifting the Flying Dutchmen to the greatest second-half run in league history (it’s true, I looked it up!). Whether he wins tonight or not, he is the best player in the league.

But whenever I ponder the MVP race in baseball, I almost always think it should go to a player whose team made the playoffs. Over the last 23 years, I’ve gone from thinking Andre Dawson and his 49 homers were a slam-dunk as the 1987 NL MVP to believing Ozzie Smith got robbed for .303 with 75 RBI (and NO HOMERS!), 43 steals and more than twice as many walks (89) as strikeouts (36) while playing his usual Gold Glove defense for a Cardinals team that won the NL East and finished 18 ½ games ahead of Dawson’s cellar-dwelling Cubs.

Blog bias aside, I can’t blame anyone who votes for Lee, Janning or Chase Allen because Old Dominion and Northeastern finished 1-2. Janning’s stats don’t jump off the page (15.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 3.1 apg) but he’s the glue of a smart, focused, senior-laden team. Tom Pecora’s quote about Janning being the Wayne Gretzky of Northeastern—the guy who makes the pass that leads to the pass that leads to the basket—was great, and telling. I hope enough people have watched enough Northeastern games this year to realize that.

I think Lee will benefit most from name recognition, even though he had a lesser season this year (14.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game) than last year (15.5/5.7). Southern bias helps too! I imagine voters will lean towards the senior in a tiebreaker scenario, which is understandable.

Honestly, I’m starting to really think Jenkins wins it. I just realized he has more Player of the Week awards (four—three shared and one solo) than Janning and Lee combined (one shared honor apiece). Screw it. Jenkins wins. And if he doesn’t, I may be right anyway!

FIRST TEAM ALL-CAA

Charles Jenkins, Hofstra

Matt Janning, Northeastern

Gerald Lee, ODU

Larry Sanders, VCU

Chase Allen, Northeastern

SECOND TEAM ALL-CAA

David Schneider, W&M

Joey Rodriguez, VCU

Jamie Harris, Drexel

Denzel Bowles, JMU

Jawan Carter, Delaware

THIRD TEAM ALL-CAA

Robert Nwankwo, Towson

Joe Dukes, Georgia State

Quinn McDowell, W&M

Julius Wells, JMU

Cam Long, Mason

You have no idea how much I wanted to leave Long off, just to annoy the paste-eaters in Mason Nation. But as poorly as he finished, he’s the most reliable player on a team that earned a bye and the closest thing the Patriots have to a mature, calming presence.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Who should win: Halil Kanacevic, Hofstra

Who will win: Chris Fouch, Drexel

No denying here my blog bias is the tiebreaker. Kanacevic was fifth in the league in rebounding as a rookie, finished tied for fourth in the league with 10 10-rebound games and, like Jenkins, has been at his best during the Dutchmen’s sizzling run (9.6 points and eight boards per game). His emergence has been doubly impressive considering how much fellow freshmen Chaz Williams has struggled in the last few weeks.

However, I won’t argue with anyone who prefers Fouch, who certainly has the better nickname (F-Bomb, so awesome), led all CAA rookies in scoring and has scored in double digits in nine of the last 10 games in which he was healthy (he was limited to five minutes in the Dutchmen rematch and missed the subsequent two games). I also think Fouch will benefit from Kanacevic and Williams splitting the ROY vote.

CAA ALL-ROOKIE TEAM

Halil Kanacevic, Hofstra

Chris Fouch, Drexel

Chaz Williams, Hofstra

Luke Hancock, Mason

Darren White, JMU

COACH OF THE YEAR

Tony Shaver, W&M. Picked 12th in the preseason, Tribe fans are wondering what could have been after finishing third. Pretty remarkable. Wonder how Pecora places in the balloting after overseeing THE GREATEST SECOND HALF RUN IN LEAGUE HISTORY!!

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Hofstra 77, Towson 61 (Or: The Kids Are Alright)

Halil Kanacevic apparently wasn't the only freshmen exhausted Wednesday night.

The most revealing sequence of the Flying Dutchmen’s 77-61 win over Towson Wednesday took place in the final five minutes with the game well in hand. Towson’s Josh Brown missed a 3-pointer and a group of players tussled for the rebound. Halil Kanacevic emerged from a scrum of several players with his 10th board of the night as fellow phenom Chaz Williams went crashing to the floor.

Kanacevic, who had passed the ball to Cornelius Vines, paused and went back to help up Williams while Vines stopped in his tracks as well. Once Williams was back on his feet, Vines resumed moving up court.

The message: As the freshmen go, so go the Dutchmen.

Kanacevic and Williams were the Dutchmen’s top two scorers for the second straight game. Kanacevic, for the second straight game, established a new career high in points (18) and recorded a double-double. He also added a career-high five blocks. Williams cooled off after a red-hot first half in which he drained all four of his 3-pointers but still finished with 16 points, the fifth time in six games he’s scored at least 10 points.

“I think this is the first press conference we’ve had with both of the freshmen here,” Tom Pecora said as he sat down, flanked by Kanacevic and Williams. “I know it won’t be the last.”

They also were the Dutchmen’s most reliable players at the most pivotal time of the game. The freshmen combined to score 24 of the Dutchmen’s final 31 points of the first half, during which the Dutchmen twice came back from five-point deficits to take a 45-36 lead at intermission. Williams hit three of his 3-pointers during a 20-6 run that ended the half.

“I hope these two guys battle each other for rookie of the year in the conference,” Pecora said. “But for them to do that, we’ve got to win. And some nights, it’s going to take a little bit more than others.”

The Dutchmen would be in pretty good shape if they could bottle their performance Wednesday. In addition to the continued breakout of the freshmen, Charles Jenkins had 13 points, seven rebounds, three assists and no turnovers while Vines (10 points, three rebounds) and Miklos Szabo (eight points, eight rebounds) and produced the type of numbers Pecora wants to see out of his lone seniors.

Of course, certain caveats apply, such as this is the last time the Dutchmen are scheduled to face Towson this season (and maybe ever, if Hofstra is successful in getting the hell out of the CAA). Towson brings the best out of the Dutchmen, offensively and otherwise: The Dutchmen are 15-5 against the Tigers since the two schools moved to the CAA and have scored 77 or more points eight times in the last 12 meetings.

Both Szabo and Vines have enjoyed their best games against Towson: Szabo had a career-high 22 points and added eight boards against the Tigers Dec. 5. He’s had as many as eight rebounds in a game just once in his other 13 games this year. Vines, meanwhile, had six 3-pointers against Towson and enjoyed the first of his three 20-point games with the Dutchmen in the first meeting between the teams last season (a career high he tied against UConn).

And as impressive as Kanacevic and Williams were Wednesday, they still had plenty of freshmen moments. Kanacevic appeared to be dragging for much of the game, so much that we thought he might actually get sick on the floor.

“I was kidding with Halil—he was dragging up and down the floor before he came out, like ‘Oh my God, I can’t run,’” Pecora said. “Then we go the ball [and] he pop shot a 3. I said ‘It’s amazing how much energy is in that round ball. It’s like an energy sphere.’”

Williams finished with three assists and seven turnovers, the fifth straight game in which he’s had at least as many turnovers as assists. In that span, he’s collected 12 assists while turning the ball over 27 times as his assist-to-turnover ratio, which was once just shy of 3:1, has fallen to just 1.43:1 (60/42).

“He got confused for a while there, he thought it was dodge ball,” Pecora said. “He had seven turnovers, you can’t do that. I just said to him ‘You’re a New York City guard. I was a bad New York City guard. You take pride in not turning the ball over. That’s one thing you don’t do.’ So they’re still [a] work in progress.”

If the growing pains are this promising, though, imagine what the final product might look like. “These guys are going to be here for the rest of this and three more years,” Pecora said. “So we’re excited about that. We’re very excited about [it].”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Towson 1/6)

3: Halil Kanacevic

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Chaz Williams

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 24

Chaz Williams 18

Nathaniel Lester 18

Halil Kanacevic 16

Greg Washington 8

Cornelius Vines 7

Miklos Szabo 5

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Davidson 61, Hofstra 52 (Or: The New York state of mind is not a very good one)

Even Long Island's own Billy Joel is ready to take aim at the Flying Dutchmen after back-to-back losses in the Holiday Festival.

Bob McKillop wasn’t very comfortable coaching against Hofstra and one of his protégés, Tom Pecora, during the consolation game of the Holiday Festival Monday night. So after Davidson beat the Flying Dutchmen, 61-52, in front of tumbleweeds, McKillop was only too happy to immediately revert back to the familiar role of dispensing advice to the fans of the school from which he graduated and the head coach to whom he gave his first job.

“Nothing’s as good as it seems, nothing’s as bad as it seems,” McKillop said. “Somewhere in between is reality. I heard Lou Holtz say that once, and boy it’s ever so true. As I walked the streets of New York last night at 2 o’clock after that loss, now I’ll be walking the streets of New York at 2 o’clock in a different frame of mind.”

For the second straight year, the Christmas frame of mind is not good around the Flying Dutchmen, who, once again, enter the holiday with a two-game losing streak that has negated much or all of the goodwill and positive momentum created during the first four weeks of the non-conference schedule.

The natives are restless with Pecora, who was almost rendered speechless Monday after the Dutchmen played in strangely dispassionate fashion until a too-little, too-late burst of energy in the final seven minutes. The Dutchmen tied the score six times but never led (the first time this season they’ve failed to lead in a game), were outrebounded 47-34 and took just five free throws, their fewest attempts since Feb. 2, 2006 against Old Dominion.

As disgusted as he was Monday, Pecora was neither surprised by the outcome nor likely to head out for a post-midnight stroll to try and figure out what went wrong, “I had individual meetings with all the guys today, and coming out of the meetings afterward, I met with my staff [and] I said ‘We’re going to have a rough time tonight’ because from the neck up, we’re not in a good place,” Pecora said. “We’ve got guys who have lost a little bit of confidence. We’ve got guys who are not playing with the energy that they need to play with, night in and night out.”

Pecora sounded more proactive than ever Monday, willing and ready to revamp his approach and overhaul the rotation after a game in which the two best players on the court for the Dutchmen were, by far, freshmen Halil Kanacevic and Chaz Williams.

Kanacevic had 10 points and led the Dutchmen with nine rebounds and a career-high four blocks while Williams, who made his first start, set career highs and led the Dutchmen with 14 points in 38 minutes.

“We’re in a transition right now as a team,” Pecora said. “I thought our young guys, Chaz and Halil Kanacevic, played with great energy. I was disappointed in our veterans. I didn’t think they played with much of a sense of urgency. I don’t make excuses, but maybe they were emotionally or physically drained from last night [the 72-60 loss to St. John’s], such a big game.

“I don’t buy that. You’ve only got so many in you and you’ve got to play every game like they’re going to put the balls away at midnight and you’re never going to play the game again.”

The basketballs won’t disappear anytime soon for the Dutchmen: Pecora said he originally planned to give the team Tuesday off but that it would practice every day until Christmas.

“And depending how I feel, maybe Christmas night,” Pecora said. “And then we’re just gonna keep practicing until we get better. And if we go down and we win a game in Florida the right way and we start playing the right way, maybe we’ll get a day off. We’re on break so I don’t have to take any days off. And I love practice.”

So does the person whom the Dutchmen have to worry about following in McKillop’s footsteps and wandering the streets searching for answers. Charles Jenkins had a second straight subpar game Monday, when he scored 11 points on 5-of-14 shooting, and seems to be falling into a trying-to-do-everything funk for the second straight year—even if Pecora played semantics in saying this season is different than last.

“I think last year he was tired because he was coming in every night and shooting and I had to take the key away and tell him ‘You can’t come in the gym anymore at night,’” Pecora said. “I think he was leg weary last year. I think this is more of him just feeling responsibility, the trickle-down. We’re not getting a lot from the seniors. He knows that.”

But he knew that last year, too, when he was the youngest player on the roster but also someone whose talent demanded he become the leader of a team with six role-playing seniors and three juniors who were all new to the program. As December morphed into January, Jenkins seemed overwhelmed by the duality of his tasks and endured a nine-game stretch in which he shot just 27 percent from the field (35-for-129) as the Dutchmen went 3-6.

Serving as a leader now, as a junior and the most experienced player on the team, is a far more natural experience for Jenkins, but the challenges are just as plentiful. He is literally the middle man in this transition, the only holdover who is assured of being part of the next Dutchmen core, yet he must also boost the likes of seniors Miklos Szabo and Cornelius Vines, both of whom seem on the verge of slipping out of the rotation, as well as fellow juniors Nathaniel Lester and Greg Washington, each of whom has yet to play to expectations this year.

Lester’s block with 7:15 left jump-started a 15-9 run that pulled the Dutchmen within five with just over a minute to play, but he scored a season-low two points Monday, the fifth straight game he has fallen short of double figures, and pulled down four rebounds, only the fifth time this year he’s had fewer than five boards. He also played just 18 minutes, the second time in the last three games he’d played fewer than 20 minutes. He played at least 26 minutes in each of the Dutchmen’s first 10 games.

The 6-foot-10 Washington, meanwhile, remained a non-factor underneath with just four points and two rebounds. It was the third time this year Washington has recorded two or fewer rebounds in a game.

Very recent history suggests Jenkins (who earned first-team All-CAA honors last year despite his midseason swoon) and the Dutchmen (who won 21 games last year with a team that was not nearly as talented as this one) will emerge from their slumps in plenty of time to salvage the season. But very recent history—as well as Monday night—also suggests the path there will be a painful one.

“Think about it, man,” Pecora said. “You’re 18, you’re 20, whatever it is, you’re playing at Madison Square Garden. If you can’t go out and play your ass off, then something’s really, really wrong. So it’s my job to figure out what that is and to come up with a game plan.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Davidson 12/21)

3: Halil Kanacevic

2: Chaz Williams

1: Charles Jenkins

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 19

Chaz Williams 12

Nathaniel Lester 12

Halil Kanacevic 10

Greg Washington 7

Cornelius Vines 7

Miklos Szabo 5

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Chaz already providing quite an assist

Chaz Williams may accomplish something as a freshman that even Speedy Claxton didn't do in four years.

Halil Kanacevic is the reigning CAA Rookie of the Week, but as well as Kanacevic played in the wins over Manhattan and New Hampshire, the most impressive performance by a Flying Dutchmen newcomer last week was the one authored Saturday by Chaz Williams.

The freshman point guard did something no player has done at Hofstra in the 16 years Tom Pecora has been associated with the program by collecting 10 assists with no turnovers. Speedy Claxton came closest to pulling off the feat twice during the 1997-98 season, when he had nine assists and no turnovers against Drexel and 13 assists and one turnover against New Hampshire. Major props to men’s hoops SID Jeremy Kniffin for doing the impressive amount of legwork to discover those facts.

Williams’ performance Saturday marked only the seventh time a player has collected at least 10 assists in a game in Pecora’s nine seasons as head coach. And no one was more efficient in doing so than Williams, who, unlike his predecessors, came off the bench and played just 31 minutes, the fewest of any of the players to rack up double-digit assists. Here’s the list of the six previous 10-assist games under Pecora:

Charles Jenkins: 13 assists/4 turnovers in 48 minutes vs. James Madison, 2/18/09**

Carlos Rivera: 10 assists/3 turnover in 34 minutes vs. St. Francis, 12/22/05

Carlos Rivera: 10 assists/2 turnovers in 46 minutes vs. UNCW, 1/3/07**

Gibran Washington: 12 assists/2 turnovers in 36 minutes vs. St. John’s, 12/2/03

Woody Souffrant: 10 assists/3 turnovers in 40 minutes vs. Delaware. 1/26/02

Woody Souffrant: 10 assists/3 turnovers in 37 minutes vs. Drexel, 12/23/01

**double overtime

This may just be the start of unprecedented feats from Williams, who enters the Holiday Festival with an assist-to-turnover ratio of just shy of 3:1 (41 assists, 14 turnovers). Since Pecora took over as head coach, no player has even produced an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2:1. Carlos Rivera came closest in 2005-06, when he had 117 assists and 60 turnovers (1.95).

The last Hofstra player to have an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2:1 was Jason Hernandez, who had 124 assists and 51 turnovers as a senior in 2000-01 (2.43). Speedy Claxton also had one season with a 2:1 assist-to-turnover as a sophomore in 1997-98, when he had 224 assists and 104 turnovers (2.15).

In addition, the CAA leader last season in assist-to-turnover ratio was Towson’s Brian Morris at 2.11.

That said, the presence of Souffrant on the list of Pecora-era players with 10 assists in a game serves as a cautionary tale. Souffrant was a freshman when he had his 10-assist games and had his first 10-assist performance in his first collegiate start, which further fueled the hype machine that had him pegged as the successor to Claxton and Hernandez.

But after a fast start, Souffrant faded: He started 50 games in his first two years—including all 28 in which he played as a sophomore—and averaged 4.5 assists per contest but made just four starts his last two years, during which he averaged 1.7 assists per game. So while restraint should be exercised with Williams, it’s not too early—a mere 10 games into his career—to wonder just how high a ceiling he possesses.

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

Hofstra 44, Manhattan 39 (Or: I’ve called Hofstra wins ugly, pug-ugly, fugly, pug-fugly, but never ugly-ugly…)

A Flying Dutchmen win as ugly as Moe the Bartender left Tom Pecora feeling as grumpy as, well, Moe the Bartender.

The Flying Dutchmen didn’t trail for the final 36 minutes against Manhattan Wednesday night, scored 19 unanswered points during a first half in which they held the Jaspers scoreless from the field for nearly 14 minutes, limited the Jaspers to 21 percent shooting and made history with the final score.

Yet at the podium afterward sat two forlorn-looking players and one head coach, the latter of whose disgust threatened to bubble over. Three weeks after the Dutchmen learned that Tom Pecora doesn’t believe in moral victories following the loss to UConn, they learned Wednesday he’s not one to find beauty in ugly wins, either.

And the Dutchmen won in historically grotesque fashion by edging Manhattan, 44-39, in front of a season-high 3,076 at the Arena (can football be killed again before the New Hampshire game Saturday?). The 44 points were the fewest Hofstra has scored in a victory since the Flying Dutchmen (who were really called the Flying Dutchmen back then) beat something called an Albright, 43-36, in 1961-62. In addition, the victory marked the first time Hofstra won with less than 50 points since the 1992-93 season, when the Butch van Breda Kolff-led Dutchmen (who, yes, were also still called the Dutchmen back then) edged Yale 48-46.

More impressively, it was the first time since Jan. 18, 1989, when Hofstra beat Rider 48-34, that the Dutchmen have allowed fewer than 40 points. Neither Charles Jenkins or Halil Kanacevic, the two players at the podium Wednesday night, had been born yet. (I was in 10th grade, listening to hair metal and sporting a mullet. I am no longer in 10th grade, though)

Despite the victory, Pecora was disappointed the Dutchmen performed nothing like the team that clicked so well in blowing out Towson, 84-64, in the CAA opener Saturday. The Dutchmen scored more points in the second half Saturday (48) than in 40 minutes Wednesday.

“I could sit here and tell you it’s a win, every win’s great,” Pecora said. “Well, I’m trying to express to them on a daily basis [that] you look at the big picture. It’s not about winning one game. It’s about being good enough and making yourself a good enough team so you win a championship. I don’t like wasting a day. And today, we kind of [did].”

The Dutchmen, who had committed 10 or fewer turnovers in each of their previous three games, turned the ball over 19 times, their most since the first round NIT win over Yale. They also had a season-low six assists, which made for the program’s worst assist-to-turnover ratio since the same 6/19 in a 78-54 loss to George Mason Feb. 3. The Dutchmen shot 34.6 percent, their second-worst performance of the season behind only the UConn game, and just 37.5 percent from the line, by far their worst outing of the year.

Pecora felt the Dutchmen were outworked and took on the personality of a young team instead of a veteran one, even though it was the freshman Kanacevic (a team-high 10 points and 11 rebounds in his second career double-double) who was the biggest reason Hofstra avoided an embarrassing loss.

Charles Jenkins scored nine points on 3-of-14 shooting, including just 1-of-7 in the second half. He had four steals, none after halftime. Nathaniel Lester had seven points and seven rebounds in a team-high 38 minutes, but big men Miklos Szabo (four points, five rebounds, four fouls) and Greg Washington (eight rebounds and five blocks but just two points and three fouls) annoyed Pecora with foolish fouls while Cornelius Vines had one point, five rebounds, no assists and four turnovers.

Pecora was most discouraged with how the Dutchmen allowed Manhattan to remain in the game even after the Dutchmen went on a 19-0 run in which the Jaspers missed 21 straight shots. The Dutchmen were as dominant on defense as the run would indicate—the lasting image of the drought was that of Jenkins and Washington leaping, one after the other a la synchronized swimmers, to contest a Manhattan shot—but Manhattan finished the half on a 12-4 run and continued chipping away in the second half as the Dutchmen relied too much on jump shots.

“I’m concerned—I talked to Charles about it, just talked to the two seniors about it: We have to take on a mentality of a veteran team, even though we’re split right down the middle,” Pecora said. “We can’t take on that immature mindset of a team with that many young guys. And I thought tonight we played like that. We played in an immature fashion and our veterans have got to impose their will on this basketball team, every night, if we’re going to get better.”

The Jaspers got within 36-34 on a layup by Ryan Pickett with 7:03 left, but a layup by Kanacevic following a Pecora timeout ended a nearly four-minute drought for the Dutchmen, who never led by less than a possession again.

“We won this game because we were home, we got a good turnout, the students were great. But we didn’t shoot well from the foul line. We just looked like a team that wasn’t focused. And I said to these guys ‘We played cool tonight we didn’t play hard.’ We’ll fix that [today at practice].”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Manhattan 12/9)

3: Halil Kanacevic

2: Nathaniel Lester

1: Greg Washington

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 13

Nathaniel Lester 12

Halil Kanacevic 7

Greg Washington 6

Cornelius Vines 6

Miklos Szabo 5

Chaz Williams 5

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

Bits and Bytes: Roy Williams will soon have to give a [hoot] about Hofstra!

Roy Williams is already fretting over the possibility of facing the Flying Dutchmen next November!

The turkey wasn’t even in the oven yet when it was time to look ahead to next Thanksgiving—or, more accurately, the weekend before next Thanksgiving, when the Flying Dutchmen will make it two straight prestigious preseason tournaments by participating in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off Classic in San Juan.

The headline school in the eight-team field is North Carolina, which was my favorite college team before I came to my senses and arrived at Hofstra. As awesome as it was playing UConn this year, I think playing UNC might be even better. And don’t even get me going on the possibility—nay, the probability!—of the Dutchmen shocking the Tar Heels and Roy Williams ranting in the post-game press conference about how he doesn’t give a crap about the Pride vs. Flying Dutchmen debate.

A couple other quick bits and bytes while you polish off the remaining bits and bytes of the leftovers:

—A busy pre-Thanksgiving news week for the men’s basketball program, which announced the signings of small forward Marvin Dominique and highly touted Uniondale guard Devon McMillan to national letters of intent. Congrats to the two members of the Class of 2014 (good freaking God), and as always, don’t eat the Sbarro.

—Figure it’s about time I finally explain the 3 Stars of the Game concept. Even a non-puckhead like me recognizes it’s a hockey tradition, but I got the idea to bring it to the blog when a friend of mine from Boston, South Coast Today writer Jon Couture, used it as a daily—and, eventually, seasonal—measure of the Red Sox.

I loved the concept and was determined to shamelessly steal it for my own nefarious purposes, with one modification: He also dipped into negative stars, which was perfect there but which I will avoid here because these aren’t pros we're covering.

Hopefully the idea works as well here as it did at Jon’s blog. I’d recommend you check it out, but his newspaper’s blog network appears to be down. If you get a chance, though, check out his most recent column here.

—Some interesting discussion on the Any Given Saturday (I-AA football board) as well as the CAA Zone over whether Fordham or Stony Brook will replace Northeastern as the 12th football school in the CAA.

Of the two, Stony Brook would be a far better fit if the conference wants its football programs to be all-sports members (which is my hunch). Fordham is a better fit in terms of prestige, and the school wants to upgrade to full scholarship level in football even if it means bolting the Patriot League, but its men’s basketball program is in the midst of a two-decade funk, plays in a retro gym (and not the type of retro gym that inspires wordy prose) and would be a drain on the RPI.

I still think the CAA should hang tight at 11 teams for one season until Old Dominion joins in 2011 and then see if anyone steps aside before Georgia State joins in 2012. I would be surprised if Northeastern is the only school to pull its football program from the CAA.

—Should have mentioned this before Thanksgiving, but Tom Pecora deserves to be lauded for anticipating the clichéd lede from the writers sitting before him. I used to cover high school football in Connecticut, where most teams ended their regular seasons with a Thanksgiving morning game against their biggest rival.

Our paper covered two big rivalry games, and inevitably, someone—myself most certainly included—would take the bait and open his story with a turkey reference—i.e. “Joe Running Back’s turkey tasted a lot better last night after his 27-yard touchdown run with 20 seconds left gave Middle Of Nowhere High a 6-0 win over East Of Nowhere High.”

And so there I was last Tuesday night, old habits creeping up on me and filling my head with turkey-themed ledes, when Pecora closed his opening comments at his press conference by saying “…the turkey won’t taste as good.” I’m probably the only person in the room who thought that was awesomely ironic, but well, it was.

—Lastly, tonight’s game against Fairfield just gained a little bit of prestige with Mid-Majority declaring it the Game! Of! The! Night! So awesome. Check out Damon Lewis’ excellent and insightful preview here. I honestly don’t know how these guys develop such a mastery of 200-odd schools. I can barely do one and fake my way through another 11. Damon and Kyle deliver consistently fantastic work, and if you’ve got a few extra bucks laying around, please consider donating to the MM to ensure it can survive the season.

Here’s one really interesting thing to keep an eye on tonight: The performance of freshman Halil Kanacevic, who opened his career with a double-double at Kansas and was mighty impressive in the two NIT games in Connecticut. But Kanacevic’s numbers have dropped precipitously over the last three games—during which his points-rebounds have gone 8-7, 5-4 and 4-2—and I imagine he’s hitting the first of the rookie walls. I’ll bet the Thanksgiving break did wonders for him and will predict he places in the 3 Stars of the Game balloting.

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

Kansas 101, Hofstra 65 (Or: That 101-63 run was a bit much to overcome)

ESPN, realizing it does not want the full fury of Dutch Nation (snort) unleashed upon it, makes sure to air on SportsCenter a highlight of Hofstra's early dominance of Kansas!

For a variety of reasons, the Flying Dutchmen’s 101-65 loss to top-ranked Kansas—in which the Jayhawks made a dramatic comeback from an early 2-0 deficit, look, the picture doesn’t lie!—didn’t lend itself to the recap all nine of you Loyal Readers grew accustomed to last season.

With a million TVs (give or take a few) and a menu that’s as tasty as it is affordable, Miller’s Ale House is a great place to watch a game (look at me, selling out!). But sitting atop bar stools about six inches from one of the big screens—the wife most accurately described it as sitting in the front row of a movie theatre—put us so close to the telecast that the players were actually blurry and it took an extra second or two to digest whatever we were seeing.

Hopefully, with tickets procured to at least the next three games—that’s right, we’re going to the NIT baybee—we’ll be able to provide the type of thorough recap I’d like to think I produced with regularity last season.

In addition, too much should never be read into the season opener, regardless of how it turns out—especially when it goes according to script like it did last night. It was a lopsided loss—the biggest margin of defeat for Hofstra since a 79-43 loss to Xavier in 1996-97—yet nowhere near the type of soul-crusher that inspires great, wordy angst.

This was Kansas, after all, and the Jayhawks are really freaking good. That number one ranking isn’t a fluke, and there was little to no chance they’d be caught off-guard in the season opener. All my razzing of Kansas and mean, bullying fans like Loyal Reader Tommy aside, it’d be cool if the Jayhawks win the very last game of the season, too.

The Flying Dutchmen didn’t suffer any injuries, the players and coaches got to open the season in one of the best environments possible and the school got the burst of priceless publicity it expected. The highlights of the game aired during the first segment and before the first commercials on this morning’s SportsCenter and the final score was the first men’s basketball score displayed along the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

The evening was a pretty neat one for Hofstra fans as well. To be standing in a restaurant and see the words “Your receiver will autotune to Hofstra @ Kansas on 721 ESPN at 8 p.m.” appear on multiple screens is to realize just how far the basketball program has come in the last 15 or so years. And to actually see people showing up at a restaurant to watch Hofstra on TV and to hear them cheering wildly when the Dutchmen made their best run late in the first half? Awesome beyond words.

All that said, there were some actual basketball observations worth noting. Like these!

—I realized after getting to Miller’s Ale House that I couldn’t remember how to spell Halil Kanacevic. That’s not going to be a problem for long. Kanacevic had perhaps the most impressive debut of the Tom Pecora Era with 12 points and 12 rebounds in 31 minutes. He almost single-handedly made things interesting for a brief period of time in the first half, when he had five points, two rebounds and a steal during an 8-0 run in which the Dutchmen closed to within 31-22 and forced Bill Self to burn two timeouts.

Kanacevic is the first Hofstra player to put up a double-double in his debut since Kenny Adeleke had 13 points and 10 rebounds against Florida Atlantic Nov. 17, 2001. Let’s hope the similarities end there, shall we?

Again, nobody should jump to conclusions after the season opener, but putting up a double-double against the best team in the country is pretty damn impressive.

—That said, I’m going to gush a bit here, but let me preface it by saying (or writing) that I don’t think I properly expressed my enthusiasm over another freshman, Chaz Williams, in Friday’s season preview. But this guy is going to be really good really soon, and may have already officially become the point guard the Dutchmen have lacked the last two years.

Williams didn’t start but played 37 minutes—the most by a Dutchman in his debut game since Antoine Agudio played 38 minutes in the 2004-05 season opener—and did a pretty good Loren Stokes impersonation by doing a little bit of everything (seven points, six assists, five rebounds and one steal) and driving the lane with the type of fearless regularity unbecoming of such a slight frame.

Most importantly, and most impressively: He didn’t commit a turnover. That, too, is worth noting when it occurs in a season opener against the top-ranked team in the land.

—The players whose spots in the starting lineup would be most endangered if Kanacevic and Williams continue to emerge had mixed results Friday. Miklos Szabo scored the seismic basket that gave the Dutchmen the early lead and hit all three of his field goal attempts in the first half, but foul trouble limited him to just 18 minutes and he fouled out with nine points and five boards.

Life With Corny, meanwhile, evoked memories of last season, and not in the good way, by missing all but one of his nine field goal attempts and all six of his shots from 3-point land. He finished with two points, the seventh time in his last nine regular season games he failed to reach double digits. I wouldn’t expect to see him pulled from the lineup in the first couple rounds of the NIT, but is he already on the hot seat?

—Charles Jenkins didn’t have a classic game, but he acquitted himself well on the big stage after a rough first half (2-of-9 from the field). Jenkins scored 18 points in the final 20 minutes and led the Dutchmen with 23 points and four steals while also adding five rebounds. This just in: He’ll be fine.

—The other two juniors were considerably quieter. Greg Washington drew four fouls in the first half and fouled out in just nine minutes. Fun fact: He started in his Hofstra debut Nov. 10, 2007 and fouled out in seven minutes. Nathaniel Lester, whose newly shorn hair and more muscular build makes him look about 10 years older than he did a year ago, had just six points and one board.

— Yves Jules was scoreless in eight minutes as the eighth and final member of the rotation. David Imes missed the game with an ankle injury and Brad Kelleher is at the mercy of the NCAA’s idiotic Clearinghouse (but hey, John Wall missed a game last night too, hooray fairness!).

THREE STARS OF THE GAME

(I’ll further explain this Monday, but rest assured it’s a concept I’ve shamelessly ripped off from others!)

3: Halil Kanacevic

2: Chaz Williams

1: Charles Jenkins

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