So like I was saying all along, Hofstra is headed for the CBI

Remember all that stuff I wrote about the CIT? Forget about it! It was announced just after midnight today that Hofstra will participate in the College Basketball Invitational and will host something called an IUPUI (that bit of New York snobbery is for Twitter friend turned foe RedZoneIUPUI) Wednesday at 7 p.m. If the Flying Dutchmen win, they’ll then host a quarterfinal game a week from today.

All trash-talking aside, don’t sleep on IUPUI, which will arrive in Hempstead with quite the resume—the Jaguars finished second in the Summit League with a 15-3 record, lost to Oakland in the championship game of the Summit tournament and were 83rd in the NCAA’s RPI rankings Sunday). We’ll have plenty more on IUPUI and the CBI over the next couple days, but first, let’s chew on the pleasant and delicious surprise that is this appearance in the CBI.

As evidenced by my CIT stories and musings the last few days, I never expected Hofstra to make the financial commitment required by the CBI, which charges host teams $60,000 per game. Nor would I have blamed the school for choosing not to do so.

There is a chance Hofstra negotiated a lower price—Wisconsin-Green Bay didn’t pay to host a game last season in exchange for agreeing to play in a pre-season tournament run by the Gazelle Group, which also operates the CBI—but regardless, the school should be commended for making an investment in the men’s basketball program by committing to at least two home games. (Yes, I am lauding both Hofstra and George Mason in the same week, I do in fact feel woozy)

If Hofstra paid the full fee, then it all but assured this CBI run—no matter how long it lasts—will operate in the red. The top ticket price is $10 ($5 cheaper than the top price for a regular season game) meaning even a sellout wouldn’t recoup the school’s initial investment.

This morning’s news comes six days after the NCAA announced Hofstra won the right to host the men’s lacrosse quarterfinals in 2011 and is consistent with the message delivered the day football was killed: No other programs are in danger and every effort will be made to get them to succeed at a national level. Nothing will ever excuse the surreptitious assassination of football, but at least the powers that be are living up to their word by displaying support for the remaining sports.

You can bet the basketball staff is thrilled with this investment as well with the message it sends to conferences present and, perhaps, future as well. The CAA is sending six schools to a postseason tournament, most of any true mid-major league. The Atlantic 10 is sending eight schools to a tournament and has the most schools in the CBI (three). Interesting, yes?

Also worth noting: If Hofstra reaches the semifinals of the CBI, it will have to postpone the basketball banquet, currently scheduled for next Wednesday.

You, too, deserve credit for getting Hofstra into the CBI. The school was surprised by the negative reaction to its declining to participate in either the CBI or CIT last year, so much so that Jack Hayes and Tom Pecora sent out an email explaining the decision to season ticket holders and Pride Club members. We all know how much Hofstra hates bad publicity, so what better way to fix the damage from last season than by playing multiple home games in one of these tournaments this year?

And the most fascinating part of Hofstra participating in the CBI? It further fuels the rivalry with Stony Brook. Hours before Hofstra’s home game was finalized, the NIT pairings were released with eighth-seeded Stony Brook hosting a game against top-seeded Illinois because of a conflict at Illinois’ arena. Stony Brook AD and Hofstra alum Jim Fiore told Newsday last night that the school made $75,000 in emergency repairs to make Stony Brook Arena—which was supposed to be renovated until the economy collapsed—inhabitable for an America East title game or NIT home game.

Maybe Hofstra hosting a CBI game at the exact same time Stony Brook is hosting an NIT game is coincidence. But given how the Cold War between the schools is beginning to make the mid-‘80s relations between Russia and the United States look warm in comparison, I doubt it. Who knew a berth in the CBI could be so much fun?

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

Hey SBU lax…don’t come around here no more (and maybe you too, football and hoops)

Will Hofstra be singing "I Won't Back Down" when it comes to ending the men's lacrosse rivalry with Stony Brook?

Hope you didn’t get too excited about my grand proposal for the new ECC featuring Hofstra and Stony Brook. Newsday reported on its website Thursday that Hofstra has chosen to end the men's lacrosse series with Stony Brook.

This of course does not mean the two schools can never compete in the same conference, or even that their men’s lacrosse teams can never again play one another in a regular season game. But it’s worth wondering if this is the first volley in a brewing Cold War between the school and a sign that Hofstra will soon decide there aren’t enough benefits to playing Stony Brook in the three major sports.

Flying Dutchmen coach Seth Tierney says pulling out of the series with Stony Brook is a matter of the Dutchmen wanting to play Manhattan and St. John’s. And adding those two schools to the schedule and subtracting Stony Brook should upgrade Hofstra’s strength of schedule. Like Stony Brook, Manhattan has made the NCAA Tournament once. St. John’s, meanwhile, begins play next season in the Big East, which should be one of the top conferences in the land with 10-time national champion Syracuse as well as perennial tournament team Notre Dame among its seven schools.

Nor, with Jack Hayes not available to comment for Marcus’ story, do we know the whole story from the Hofstra side (Stony Brook coach Rick Sowell and athletic director Jim Fiore are both quoted in the story and it’s mentioned that the 2007 game at Stony Brook raised money for Lacrosse for Autism, so those who think Marcus favors Stony Brook because he went there are going to have a field day with this one).

But I can’t imagine games against the Jaspers or Red Storm will generate any excitement among people who follow lacrosse a lot more than me (line forms to the left). Hofstra has never played Manhattan and is 9-2 against St. John’s, but the schools have played just once since St. John’s resumed playing lacrosse in 2005 after a nine-year absence. The Flying Dutchmen smoked the Red Storm, 19-3, in ’05.

And if the annual lacrosse game between the schools is vulnerable, is football next? Hofstra has never lost to Stony Brook in football, but this is the first year since the two teams were both in Division III that they’re on equal footing scholarship-wise. What was already a no-win proposition for Hofstra is particularly so now, especially with Stony Brook placing a bigger emphasis on football than Hofstra. Who wants to suffer the indignity of 12-0 turning into something-and-1?

I think the annual men’s basketball game between the two schools is safe: Stony Brook has plenty to gain in playing it and Tom Pecora is a proponent of playing as many local schools as possible. But who’s to say the decision will be Pecora’s—especially if Sowell is right in presuming that it was a “group decision” to end the series by Hofstra, one in which “…part of that group had a lot more to say than the other parts of the group.”

If Hofstra is hitching its wagon to the men’s basketball team—and it is—and it really does view the A-10 as its long-term home and is prepared to wait a long time to join the conference, might the school want to prepare for the move by disassociating itself from lower mid-majors such as Stony Brook?

And if that happens…I wonder if Fiore, who has much bigger things in mind than the America East and the Big South, takes it personally and goes all-in to try and outdo Hofstra. The two schools trying to outrace each other to the top of the mid-major world—or even beyond—would add a delicious wrinkle to the rivalry.

Alas, it would also remind us how difficult it could be to mend fences if the big boys refuse to let either Hofstra or Stony Brook sit at their tables and they are forced to settle for something else. Because while we may think Hofstra and Stony Brook are a perfect conference fit, the news Thursday is a pretty good indicator at least one of the schools doesn’t agree.

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