After finishing the first two games of the season at home, splitting games with Monmouth and Fairleigh Dickinson, Hofstra moves on to two tough road games this week. Continue reading “Hofstra’s Mihalich, Robinson, Kone on Playing Louisville”
The Hofstra Pride, trailed only by margins of 2-0 and 9-8 in the games first few minutes, led throughout by controlling the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights by holding them to barely over 30-percent shooting from the field, earning head coach Joe Mihalich his first victory as head coach by a 80-58 final at the Mack Sports Complex.
The Pride held the Knights to 30.2-percent from the field for the game and allowed just four of 26 on three-point field goal attempts. After dropping Friday’s opener against Monmouth and staring a match up with defending national champion Lousiville Tuesday, Mihalich knew a win Sunday would go a long way in his rebuilding effort of a program that went 7-25 last season.
“Failure was not an option today, that’s for sure,” Mihalich said facing road visits to Louisville and Richmond next. “It’s a good thing we were able to take care of business here.”
Hofstra traded baskets with the Knights early until the Pride went on a 9-2 run capped by Moussa Kone’s post up and spinning floater off the window to give Hofstra a 19-11 lead. The junior finished with his second straight double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds.
Darren Payen, who entered the game for a brief minute early, came back in with 10:37 left and made the most of his opportunity. His post up floater off the window gave the Pride a 31-18 lead and he got hot from there, nailing a 17 footer, grabbing an offensive board off a free throw as well as throwing down a dunk off a pick and roll from Jordan Allen to put Hofstra up 15. Payen scored a career-high 12 points in the first half, making all six field goals he took.
“I’m so proud of them for being ready and doing such a great job,” Mihalich said of Payen as well as Adam Savion who contributed 2 points and 4 rebounds in 24 minutes. Savion filled the point guard spot for Zeke Upshaw who committed two quick fouls early.
The Pride would lead by as many as 23 late in the first half after back to back dunks by Jamall Robinson and Payen to stretch into a 50-27 halftime lead.
“We talked about going back to the drawing board,” Robinson said after scoring 8 points in his debut Friday. The freshman Robinson led all scorers with 15 points, showcasing his driving skills as well as his shooting ability.
However the Knights stormed back in the second half to cut the deficit to 63-47 with an 11-3 run which included eight points from freshman Malachi Nix. However, Kone did not allow the run to last with a jumper at the free throw line extended to put Hofstra up 68-47.
“It’s great,” Kone said to get their first win of the season. “We understand on Friday that we didn’t do what we had to do to win the game as we were supposed to but today. Winning the game is going to build our confidence up.”
Graduate transfer Upshaw drove the lane, threw up an unusual shot off the window and made a traditional three point play with 4:31 left. However, Upshaw landed hard on the ground and after a little under a minute, got up and sank a free throw to give the Pride a 20-point lead.
The Pride made 52.7-percent of their field goals and outr ebounded the Knights 42-39 on the day.
Ryan Restivo covers Hofstra for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo or contact Ryan at rrestivo[at]nycbuckets.com.
When head coach Joe Mihalich took over to rebuild a Hofstra roster with just four scholarship players, it did not take him long to form a class that would lay the foundation for his new vision of the program. Continue reading “Hofstra Starts Rebuild With Freshmen Jenkins and Robinson”
It might be hard to believe that two people who met for the first time at a high school in Maryland would be leading a program on Long Island, but the roots of the connection between athletic director Jeff Hathaway and his new head coach Joe Mihalich go back a long time. Continue reading “Maryland High School Binds Hofstra’s Mihalich and Hathaway”
While head coach Joe Mihalich and athletic director Jeff Hathaway stress that the process of building the Hofstra program will be “brick by brick” as they say, the glue that holds it together will be contributions from players who will be looking for something to prove in their final season. Continue reading “Hofstra Seniors Have Big Goals In Final Season”
The entire CAA is committed to playing in an early-season tournament in 2013-14. That means that the conference has a number of great opportunities on neutral courts (and not so neutral courts) to make a big splash during non-conference play. Continue reading “Top CAA Non-Conference Games in 2013-14”
In April Joe Mihalich walked in to a unique opportunity at Hofstra, a school that managed to hire the coach who spent 15 seasons at Niagara and appeared in two NCAA tournaments. Mihalich had said in the past that only a special opportunity would convince him to leave Niagara and over the Final Four weekend, the head coach was convinced that Hofstra was that destination.
The destination promised a unique challenge after a season that saw as many as six members of its team be arrested over the course of the season. When Mihalich inherited the job only four scholarship players remained on the team and a class built with seven verbal commitments dissipated quickly.
Mihalich, after bringing his assistant coaches from Niagara on staff, went out and landed three freshmen in the late signing period, brought graduate transfers and added three talented transfers that will be able to help during the 2014-15 season. Niagara transfers Juan’ya Green, Ameen Tanksley came to the program in May while SMU transfer Brian Bernardi committed in July.
“He’s a complete player,” Mihalich said of Bernardi. “Everybody says he’s a shooter, he’s a complete basketball player. We’re tickled to death to have him. Juan’ya Green and Ameen Tanksley sit and the good news is we got three awful good players that are going to be with us every day, the bad news is they can’t put the uniform on until next year.”
The head coach confirmed that Bernardi, along with Green and Tanksley, will sit out and redshirt this season and be ready to start the 2014-15 season with the Pride. Mihalich added two transfers who will play right away, Zeke Upshaw from Illinois State and Dion Nesmith from Monmouth, who will both play one season as graduate students. The five transfers are complemented by three freshmen signed during the spring recruiting period: Eliel Gonzalez, Chris Jenkins and Jamall Robinson.
Another disadvantage the staff dealt with was the inability to have as many workouts as other teams, inheriting the job at the end of the school year and having only four scholarship players. Mihalich said he will need all nine scholarship players available to him this season to contribute right away as the message he gave his players when they left after their summer session. They only had about five weeks to work with their players during summer school.
“We were talking about the importance of conditioning and getting their workouts in and coming back in the shape that they left here,” Mihalich said. “I said ‘listen take a look around, we got nine guys that are going to be in uniform next year so all the intangibles have to be in place for us.’ We need for people to not get tired, we need for people to not get hurt, we need for people to not get in foul trouble. All those things have to be in place.”
One thing in place is his three player freshman class. expects to get impact performances from his incoming freshmen starting with his first commit at Hofstra, Chris Jenkins who signed on April 17, a week after Mihalich’s hire.
“He has a skill that not a lot of people have, he’s an incredible shooter,” Mihalich said. “He can really really shoot the basketball and that can have such a positive effect on how the other four people can play because when he’s on the floor he’s going to stretch the defense out. You can’t get too far away from him. So that allows the other four guys a little more room to do things they got to do.”
His second signee Eliel Gonzalez came on board a few weeks later and should be a pure point guard Mihalich can use right away.
“I don’t think point guards are bred I think they’re born and I think this kid was born to be a point guard,” Mihalich said. “A point guard can run an offense. He can lead a team, he makes plays that other people don’t make and he just sees the game in slow motion and I think he’s a pure point guard.”
While adding Green and Tanksley as transfers from Niagara, who combined for 38% of the Purple Eagles points last season, Mihalich also received a commitment from Jamall Robinson who previously committed to him during his tenure at the MAAC school.
“He’s a complete basketball player,” Mihalich said. “He’s ahead of his years a little bit. He’s a physical kid. He doesn’t look like a freshman. He can do a lot of different things.”
One of the larger concerns entering the season is how Mihalich and his staff will get the group of guys, a mix of transfers, freshmen and upperclassmen, to come together starting with practices in October.
“I think the biggest concern is that we’re behind and its new to everybody that we have a short amount of time to mold these four different mini groups of people whether they’re returning guys, transfer guys, fifth year guys or freshmen we have to mold them together,” Mihalich said. “It’s going to take some patience, but character makes up for a lot of things. I like the character of all the kids on this team, I really do.”
Despite the massive overhaul of the program over the last four months Mihalich said their job is not done yet prior to this season.
“We’re not there yet. Believe it or not on this date there’s still a couple of things,” Mihalich said of things he would like to get done. “If we can get a couple of more things finalized we’ll feel good.”
School starts for Hofstra students on Tuesday and it appears that Mihalich has the Pride set up for success with a solid group of newcomers while waiting for three talented transfers to have their impact next season.
“I think everybody understands it takes time to put a really good program together,” Mihalich said. “Everybody understands it’s going to take time to do this and we want to do it the right way. We’re not going to compromise our principles.We didn’t go for quick fix this year we didn’t go out and get seven junior college guys who weren’t good academically and have shaky backgrounds and that kind of stuff. We got good people and we got a couple of kids sitting out. If we can fill in some recruiting needs in the next couple of months here then the future will look bright.”
Ryan Restivo covers Hofstra for Big Apple Buckets. You can e-mail Ryan at rrestivo[at]nycbuckets.com or follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo.
College basketball’s regular season is in trouble. The average NCAA tournament game did better than the highest rated regular season game last season. Sure, an estimated 4 million people tuned into ESPN on February 2 to see Michigan play Indiana. But that Saturday was an anomaly in itself. Continue reading “Diving Into College Basketball’s Ratings Game”
Hofstra head coach Joe Mihalich will be bringing his entire coaching staff from Niagara to Long Island, the school announced officially today.
Assistant coaches Kyle Neptune, Mike Farrelly and Shane Nichols will join Hofstra’s staff under Mihalich as well as director of basketball operations Colin Curtin, retaining their titles from Niagara.
“I am thrilled about the staff we will have here at Hofstra,” said Mihalich in a statement. “Having worked with most of them at Niagara, there is a certain comfort level and I know how skilled each of them is. I look forward to the Hofstra community getting to know them and seeing what kind of rising stars in the coaching profession we have on staff.”
Mihalich’s addition to the staff is former Hofstra great Speedy Claxton as special assistant to the head coach. Claxton led Hofstra to their first NCAA tour ament berth in 23 years with their America East championship in 2000.
“To be able to have Speedy join the staff is an absolute home run,” Mihalich said in a statement. “His extensive playing experience at both the collegiate and professional level, combined with his ability to connect us with one of the greatest eras in Hofstra Basketball history, will prove to be a winning formula as we grow the program moving forward.”
Mihalich brings 15 years head coaching experience from his time with the Purple Eagles to Hofstra. As the winningest coach in MAAC history with a 265-203 record, Mihalich led the youngest team in the league last season to a regular season championship.
Ryan Restivo covers Stony Brook, Hofstra and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo.
One week after Chris Casey was hired at Niagara, sophomores Juan’ya Green and Ameen Tanksley received their releases to transfer out from the school.
Friday they finalized their decision on where they will go by joining their former head coach Joe Mihalich at Hofstra. The school officially announced Green and Tanklsey joining the Pride along with Jamall Robinson, who received a release out of his letter of intent at Niagara, who will also join Mihalich at Hofstra.
“We’re in the business where we need to get good players and that’s what we did,” Mihalich said of the additions.
Green and Tanksley will come in as juniors and will have to redshirt and sit out one season before they can play during the 2014-15 season. Robinson will be eligible to play to start the fall.
Green won the MAAC Rookie of the Year Award in 2011 and finished on the first-team All-MAAC as the Purple Eagles won the regular season championship. Tanksley averaged 11.3 points per game last season and started every game for Niagara.
Mihalich said that Green and Tanksley contacted him after receiving their release from Niagara and he ran it by Hofstra athletic director Jeff Hathaway prior to taking on the two Niagara transfers.
“He’s going to know everything that’s going to happen here just like I do that’s the way I’ve always done it,” Mihalich said of his contact with Hathaway. “I’ve always felt like the communication you got to work hand in hand with your athletic director. Believe me a big reason why I’m here is because of Jeff Hathaway he’s a terrific AD, he’s one of the best in the whole country.”
Mihalich said he has known Green and Tanksley for the last four years, having recruited them out of the Philadelphia area to play for him at Niagara for two seasons.
“You can’t help but get close to these guys,” Mihalich said. “You develop a relationship. It’s hard to put into words because it’s not just the two hours a day you’re on the practice court, it’s study hall, it’s the traveling, it’s all that stuff. It’s when there’s a special relationship there.”
Hofstra also added former Niagara commit Robinson who contacted Mihalich after he received his release from the MAAC school.
“Jamall Robinson is a winner, he’s a versatile guy,” Mihalich said. “He can play a couple of different positions. He’s physically ready to play right now even though he’s a freshman. He’s got a good body good size and strength.
“He can probably score a little bit better than people give him credit for, but he’s a good player. We’re excited about him he’s going to help us.”
Green, Tanksley and Robinson join Chris Jenkins and Eliel Gonzalez in coming to Hofstra under Mihalich. The incoming freshmen will join the team in late June for workouts during summer session.
Now with nine spots filled, seven of whom will be eligible to play next season with Green and Tanklsey sitting out per NCAA rules, Mihalich said that they will work on adding two more players, a point guard and a scoring combo guard.
“We just want to get the right guys,” Mihalich said. “Some people say it’s hard to fill up a roster, that’s not true. It’s easy to fill up a roster if you don’t really pay attention to getting the right players and the right people.”
“It’s easy to fil up a roster, but its hard to fill up a roster the right way and that’s our challenge right here is to get some good guys.”
Hofstra has had players visit campus and Mihalich said that he’s been able to sell the opportunity to play.
“We’ve had a couple kids who that were concerned about that, concerned about the lack of people here, but that’s okay,” Mihalich said. “That means that we don’t want them. We want kids that want to make an impact, kids that want to play right away. We want kids that like this situation so any kid that didn’t like it, that’s fine that’s good by us because they don’t like the situation then it’s not right for them. That’s fine they can go somewhere else.”
Having four scholarship players when Mihalich took over the job, he said he would like to make up for lost time when he gets the team together for workouts during the summer sessions.
“Can’t wait to get going,” Mihalich said. “We lost the spring. There’s everybody who was doing stuff with their guys we lost it. First of all we only have four guys here so didn’t do any team stuff, we couldn’t do anything.”
Mihalich said they will look to bring in two more players but said “it would have to be somebody pretty special” to take in another transfer.
“We’re open to anything,” Mihalich said. “We’re open to anything and everything.”
Ryan Restivo covers Stony Brook, Hofstra and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo. For more on Hofstra’s non-conference schedule, check out the non-conference schedule tracker.
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