Hofstra 75, New Hampshire 58 (Or: I went to a Hofstra basketball game and a Kiss concert broke out)

Gene Simmons would have enjoyed the Dutchmen's theatrical 75-58 win over New Hampshire. Of course, if he was running the Hofstra men's basketball team, he'd probably be charging $500 a ticket for us to watch Charles Jenkins wearing a Speedy Claxton jersey.

For a few minutes Saturday afternoon, long before the Flying Dutchmen completed a 75-58 win over New Hampshire in which there were more candidates than spots for the 3 Stars of the Game competition, the leading contender for top honors in our World Famous And Shamelessly Ripped Off From Other Folks ranking system was Hofstra trainer Evan Malings.

That, of course, was not a good sign, but there had to be some kind of reward for Malings tending to bloodied Flying Dutchmen at every turn. First he assisted Greg Washington, whose nose started bleeding in the 90 seconds or so between being announced as a member of the starting lineup and heading to the court for the opening tip. That forced Pecora to tinker with the lineup for the first time all year as he sent Halil Kanacevic out as the center and made Washington the oddest last-second scratch in the history of sports.

“I don’t know what happened to Greg,” Tom Pecora said. “He just got a bloody nose as he was walking off the floor. Nobody hit him. And it was a bad one. I mean, it just wouldn’t stop. I went over to the ref [and] I said ‘Hey, one of my guys started bleeding, he can’t start.’”

Then, a mere four minutes into the game, Charles Jenkins sent a scare into the announced crowd of 2,687 (insert an eye-rolling smiley here) when he remained face-down after he banged his head diving for a loose ball. Jenkins, his lip already swollen, got up after a few minutes and slowly walked towards the locker room as Malings wiped the blood off the court.

What, exactly, is it about games that New Hampshire that turns the weird-o-meter to 12? Last year, Pecora missed most of the game in New Hampshire when he got sick during the first half.

“I was afraid to go to the bathroom at halftime,” Pecora said.

Fortunately for the Dutchmen, Jenkins only spent a few minutes in the locker room and came back with a focus that was as tight as his teeth were loose. “First thing I said to them is ‘Kill these guys, they just busted my lip,’” Jenkins said.

Jenkins ended up leading the Dutchmen in both minutes (35) and points (21) and one-liners as he sparked a victory that was as thorough as it was encouraging. Asked about the condition of his mouth, Jenkins—whose fat lip was audible in his voice—said if he’d lost any teeth, he’d have “…just a $500,000 smile now instead of a million dollar one.”

Pecora was certainly flashing a broader smile Saturday than Wednesday, when he was disappointed with the Dutchmen’s effort in their 44-39 win over Manhattan. Despite the chaos prior to the first media timeout of the afternoon, the Dutchmen remained composed and were rarely threatened in leading for the final 36 minutes. New Hampshire closed within 28-24 with just over four minutes left in the first half, but the Dutchmen went into the locker room on a 15-7 run. The lead grew to as many as 24 late in the second half before Pecora emptied the bench.

“We talked about it in just about every timeout: I said ‘We’ve got to extend this lead,’” Pecora said. “When it’s eight, you’ve got to get it to 12. When it’s 12, you’ve got to get it to 16. We even talked when we were up 19, look, let’s get this into the 20s. And that’s important. As I’ve said before, we’re not playing just to win this game. You’re playing to get better at things you need to get better at. In turn, it allows you to win games down the road.”

The Dutchmen shot 47 percent from the field, including an impressive 67 percent from 3-point land, and made 13 of their 15 free throws after an ugly effort from the line against Manhattan (6-of-16). Defensively, the Dutchmen limited New Hampshire to just 35 percent shooting (19-of-55) and were particularly suffocating on the perimeter, where the undersized Wildcats were just 3-of-19 (16 percent) in 3-point attempts.

“Before the game, I didn’t talk to them at all really about offense,” Pecora said. “Talked to them about defending. You make defending and rebounding the focal point of what you do as a team, you can win, you can keep yourself in games when you’re not making your shots. Tonight, we did both.”

While veterans Jenkins and Cornelius Vines (16 points on 5-of-6 shooting from 3-point land) were the Dutchmen’s top scorers, freshmen Kanacevic, Chaz Williams and David Imes, in particular, were impressive in shouldering a larger load than anticipated following the early injuries to Washington and Jenkins.

Kanacevic produced his second straight solid game by recording eight points, eight rebounds and three rebounds in 25 minutes. “I was kidding around with the assistants [and said] ‘This could be like one of those situations where the guy comes in in an odd situation and you never get your position back,’ because we know what Halil is capable of doing,” Pecora said. “And he came out and he played very well from the beginning.”

Williams scored nine points and produced an eye-popping assists-to-turnover ratio of 10-to-0 in 31 minutes. And Imes, who played just 20 minutes in his first three games, played 21 Saturday and scored six points—all off nifty no-look assists from Williams—while adding three rebounds and two blocks.

“David Imes is going to be a big part of what we do here the next four years,” Pecora said. “Tough, rebounds the ball by nature, he’s a better scorer than I thought he was when we first saw him. He’s a part of this big freshman class. I love ‘em all.”

Pecora was feeling fond of just about everybody Saturday. “I couldn’t watch the [Manhattan] game until late the following afternoon,” Pecora said. “It wasn’t pretty. This will be a lot more fun to watch.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. New Hampshire 12/12)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Chaz Williams

1: Cornelius Vines

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 16

Nathaniel Lester 12

Chaz Williams 7

Cornelius Vines 7

Halil Kanacevic 7

Greg Washington 6

Miklos Szabo 5

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

Hofstra 62, New Hampshire 57 (Or: Lucky number seven)

That's right. she's back. A very excited Monica Geller lets us know how many consecutive shots New Hampshire missed with a chance to tie or take the lead Saturday.

Maybe it’s just my unbridled optimism and outrageous blog bias, but I didn’t believe the Flying Dutchmen were particularly lucky in winning four of their first eight games by five points or less. Good teams find ways to win close games and have players who define the cliché by raising their game when it matters most, such as Charles Jenkins did by scoring six points in the overtime period to lift the Dutchmen to a three-point overtime win over Western Michigan, by scoring the Dutchmen’s final eight points in the one-point win over East Tennessee State or by scoring the Dutchmen’s final six points in the four-point win over Manhattan.

And good teams capitalize on any little mistake an opponent makes in the final minutes of a tight contest, a la what the Dutchmen did in beating Manhattan, or they jump out to a big enough lead to be able to hold on despite a late surge, a la how Hofstra held on to edge Stony Brook by five.

But there is no spin I can come up with for the Dutchmen’s 62-57 win over New Hampshire Saturday. They were flat-out lucky.

Tom Pecora, on the other hand, was not lucky and spent most of the game sick in the locker room. Hope Pecora is feeling better, but if it’s any consolation (and it probably isn't), he didn’t miss anything he hasn’t already seen, particularly over the last three weeks. The Dutchmen struggled to put away an opponent after they opened a huge early lead, endured ice-cold stretches from the field, continued to be haunted by the lack of a true point guard and, despite opening the season with the lengthiest depth chart in years, continued to look as top-heavy as any team in the Pecora era.

On Saturday, the Dutchmen were lucky their flaws didn’t result in a loss in a game against a perennial bottom-feeder in the America East. UNH has enjoyed only two winning seasons in the last 25 years, the last of which occurred when it finished second in the NAC behind Scott Drapeau during Hofstra’s first season in the league in 1994-95—how’s that for a double dose of old-school?

And the Wildcats are the anti-Dutchmen—they’ve lost three in a row by five or less and four overall during a 3-7 start—could not seize the game, no matter how often Hofstra tried giving it away. The Dutchmen were up 17-1 seven minutes into the game yet fell behind by six points in the second half against a team that played just two upperclassmen.

That youth was on display after Greg Washington’s jumper gave the Dutchmen a 58-57 lead with 2:31 left. The Wildcats had six shots—SIX SHOTS!!—to take the lead over the next 135 seconds yet missed every one. Lucky.

Then, after Cornelius Vines hit two free throws with 12 seconds left—lucky too or just the law of averages evening out?—UNH had one more shot to tie the game, but Alvin Abreu missed a 3-pointer with three seconds left and Washington hit two free throws (no longer seems like luck, he’s 12-of-17 from the line this year) to seal it.

Seven shots to tie or take the lead in the last 2:31, seven misses. Greg Kihn was singing about the Dutchmen before any of the current players were born!



Will "Jeopardy" eventually summarize the Dutchmen's season?

In addition, trying to milk the clock with a late lead didn’t work for the second straight game: Hofstra took just two shots, both of which it missed, in the 2:19 between Washington’s go-ahead basket and Vines’ free throws. Against Iona last Tuesday, the Dutchmen were 1-for-5 after taking a three-point lead with 3:08 to play.

On the bright side, the victory Saturday would not have been possible if Jenkins hadn’t continued to prove the cliché correct and if “Gee Dubs”—who made his first start of the season—continued his rapid improvement. Jenkins battled early foul trouble and struggled for the fourth straight game, but chipped in just in time: He had nine of his 12 points during a four-minute stretch in which the Dutchmen turned a 45-42 deficit into a 51-49 lead.

Jenkins didn’t score again, but Washington scored six of his team-high 13 points over the remaining 4:57 as Hofstra held on. To have two sophomores—especially with such different games—developing into clutch go-to players is quite an enviable situation for Pecora and the Dutchmen.

But two players aren’t going to be enough for the next two months and two weeks. Who will have to emerge if the Dutchmen are to have the type of March we thought was possible earlier this month? We’ll try to figure that out tomorrow.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

We got the CAA spinnin’ right in our hands…

In this very special episode of Growing Pains, the Seavers learn the true meaning of Christmas...and get season tickets to see the Flying Dutchmen basketball team at the PFC.

This story from the Nashua Telegraph contains the type of straight-to-the-point lede (it’s spelled correctly, in the journalistic sense) that is necessary in today’s attention span-starved society. After all, people just don’t have the time or the patience to read a guy go on and on and on with a preamble that leads up to the crux of the story, even if said preamble is entertaining and well-constructed. People just want the facts. That’s all they want. All they have time for. Let me know what happened so I can get on with the rest of my clicking around the Interwebs.

Still here? Thanks.

Winning ugly covers up a lot of blemishes. (That recap is from the Union Leader newspaper) Losing ugly makes for a long ride home. And the Flying Dutchmen lost ugly Saturday in falling to ninth-ranked New Hampshire, 45-25, in bucolic Durham, NH. (I have no idea if Durham is bucolic. But my family regularly vacationed in New Hampshire when I was a kid and everything I’ve seen in the Granite State defines bucolic)

You know a loss is ugly when the lede (there’s that word again!) of the gamer by the Hofstra sports information department points out the record kickoff return yardage racked up by Aaron Weaver (he had 254 yards, one more than Mark Cox had in a 1990 game). If the Dutchmen won a shootout, that factoid would be buried. Since they didn’t, well, you’ve got to find positives somewhere.

At first glance, the return yardage isn’t even the most noticeable Hofstra advantage in the boxscore. The Flying Dutchmen actually recorded twice as many first downs as New Hampshire (24-12), outgained the Wildcats 339-278 and dominated time of possession (42:07-17:53). But as the lopsided final score indicated, those were empty advantages.

Hofstra had to run almost twice as many plays as New Hampshire (92-48) in order to outgain the Wildcats by 61 yards. The average gain per play was a paltry 3.7, more than two yards less than the Wildcats’ average. The Flying Dutchmen committed seven turnovers, including a record-tying five interceptions by freshman quarterback Steve Probst, two of which were returned for touchdowns.

Of New Hampshire’s five touchdown drives, four took 69 seconds or less. And it could have been worse: The Wildcats scored on just two of the five drives they began immediately after Hofstra turnovers.

Of course, it also could have been better: New Hampshire’s first four drives ended with a fumble, a punt (off a three-and-out), a turnover on downs and an interception in the end zone. And Hofstra had the chance to wear out the Wildcats by running 17 straight plays from scrimmage and 30 of 33 players in a stretch spanning the first and second quarters. The Flying Dutchmen, down 7-3 early in the second quarter, were also stymied on a fake field goal attempt inside the New Hampshire 10-yard-line.

That’s pretty much the summary of the season right there: A lot of growing pains with some hints of better days ahead. All but 38 yards (17 yards rushing and receiving by Ray Bennett and 21 yards receiving by Phil Riley) were accounted for by underclassmen. And four of the top five Dutchmen tacklers Saturday are underclassmen.

The trials will likely continue Saturday, when Richmond—ranked seventh in last week’s coaches poll and eighth in the writers’ poll—comes to town fresh off what amounts to two bye weeks: A 48-0 win over non-scholarship Georgetown followed by an open date (and that’s what a “bye week” is, a bye is awarded only in the postseason). Haven’t been to Shuart Stadium since Homecoming—doesn’t it feel as if that happened a lot more than six weeks ago?—and the hopeful short-term optimism that was present back then has long evaporated. But perhaps we’ll see some of those flickers of long-term promise.

***
A couple other interesting football links:

—The Richmond Times-Dispatch does not think Virginia Commonwealth should add a football team, and it’s got nothing to do with the already unwieldy nature of CAA football (14 teams once Georgia State and Old Dominion join).

—Are the final two games of Iona’s season the final games in the program’s history? An interesting story from the Lynchburg News & Advance about the possibility that Liberty will have to scramble to replace Iona on its 2009 schedule. The Gaels, a victim of the demise of MAAC football—the conference disbanded after six schools discontinued their programs and two more jumped to another conference—are an independent this year and have yet to beat a I-AA team.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.