Season At A Glance — Hofstra

This is the second of what will eventually be capsules for each of the NYC teams when I’m sure their season has concluded.

Team: Hofstra

Record: 10-22 (3-15 in the CAA); season ended by 85-50 loss to Georgia State in CAA First Round

Season High: There were actually two. A 63-53 win over Cleveland State in November and an 83-75 home win over Iona on Dec. 29.

Season Low: The final game, the worst loss in CAA Tournament history.

Really Good At: Offensive Rebounding — Hofstra was the third best offensive rebounding team in the CAA during conference play. Nathaniel Lester, Stephen Nwaukoni and Moussa Kone all showed an ability to get to glass.

Struggled With: Shooting — The Pride finished 11th in the CAA in effective field goal percentage. They shot poorly from three (29.8%) and two (42.3%). That led to an offense that finished 11th in the CAA in efficiency.

Key Losses:

  • Mike Moore, Sr., G (20.0 PPG, 4.6 RPG, Second Team All-CAA)
  • Nathaniel Lester, Sr., F (14.7 PPG, 6.7 RPG, athletic big man)
  • Dwan McMillan, Sr., G (team-leading 4.9 APG)

Key Returnees:

  • David Imes, Jr., F — Athletic rebounder that can help replace Lester
  • Stephen Nwaukoni, So., F — Most efficient scorer on Hofstra this season
  • Stevie Mejia, Jr., G — A full season of health will help the Pride

Outlook: Cloudy. Hofstra loses its two best players and one of two key playmakers from an offense that just wasn’t very good. If you took Moore out of the equation, the Pride’s offense this season could’ve been classified as miserable. Yes, Hofstra certainly got unlucky during a number of losses in conference play, but they went 4-15 in 2012. All of that leaves Mo Cassara with a lot of work to do in order to field a competitive team again in 2012-13. He continues to bring in big men with high upside. Moussa Kone should improve next season and will be joined in the front court by 6’7″ recruit Jimmy Hall. Still, without a returning player who averaged more than 7.0 points per game it’s tough to predict an improvement next season. There is one potential silver bullet though for Cassara. He’s got two key transfers who will be eligible next season – Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Taran Buie. Both started their careers at BCS schools (Connecticut and Penn State respectively) and should immediately impact the offense. Coombs-McDaniel in particular was an efficient scorer off the bench on UConn’s National Championship team. He’ll add another key wing. At 6’2″ Buie wasn’t really a pure point guard at Penn State. He didn’t play much for the Nittany Lions in 2010-11, but he did shoot a ton when he was on the court. It should give Cassara another confident backcourt player to add the rotation alongside Mejia.

Assist Tracker: Dec. 29

Keegan Bell (G, Chattanooga) — Bell got to play against Longwood last night and he took advantage of the situation going off for 16 assists, 10 points and nine rebounds in the 85-50 win. Eight of Bell’s assists were for threes and the Mocs only made nine. He also assisted on five layups and three dunks. The player distribution was pretty even five of Omar Wattad’s six baskets came off assists from Bell. Wattad was Chattanooga’s leading scorer with 18 points.

Matthew Dellavedova (G, St. Mary’s) — The west coast Gaels welcomed BYU into the WCC with a convincing 98-82 win in which Delledova played magnificently. He had 18 points, 12 assists and six rebounds in the win. Stephen Holt, who scored 21 points, was the greatest beneficiary on the night. He got four assists from Dellavedova. Half of Dellavedova’s assists went for layups as St. Mary’s just dissected the Cougars’ defense.

Neil Watson (G, Southern Miss) — Southern Miss is 12-2 after trouncing Alcorn State 80-49 last night. In that game Watson had 10 assists off the bench. None of those 10 assists were on a shot near the basket. He recorded assists on four threes and six jumpers. You don’t see that very often. Credit his teammates Jonathan Mills (19 points, 7-13), Darnell Dodson (16 points, 6-12) and LaShay Page (10 points, 3-11 — all makes off Watson assists) for knocking down the shots.

Scott Machado (G, Iona) — Yes, Machado ended up with 10 assists last night, but he also had five first half turnovers and really struggled with foul trouble. Half of those assists went to Mike Glover. Those five resulted in two dunks, two layups and a jumper. Momo Jones got three of the others. Three of Machado’s 10 assists were on jumpers as Hofstra’s defense forced him to pass out instead of in for most of the game.

Dwan McMillan (G, Hofstra) — Part of the reason for that was the pesky play of McMillan. He had nine assists in the game. Just one of the eight assists were for a basket around the rim (a layup by Mike Moore). There were five jumpers and three threes in the mix as well. Moore (24 points) and Nathaniel Lester (21 points) each knocked down three shots off passes from McMillan.

Kendall Marshall (G, North Carolina) — Marshall had eight points – on a perfect shooting night – and eight assists in 22 minutes as North Carolina rocked Elon 100-62. His eight assists included three dunks, two layups, two threes and a jumper. John Henson got two of the dunks. Harrison Barnes had the third.

Trey Burke (G, Michigan) — Freshman Burke had 13 points and seven assists – though the play-by-play says eight – and held Tim Frazier to four assist and five turnovers in Michigan’s 71-53 win over Penn State. (Note: Frazier did have 20 points.) Playing in John Beilein’s offense it’s not surprise that five of Burke’s assists in the play-by-play went for threes.

Kenneth Ortiz (G, Wagner) — The Seahawks have eight wins over non-conference opponents, the most in school history after a 72-61 victory over Air Force. It was Wagner’s most efficient offensive game of the season and Ortiz had 10 points and seven assists. Unfortunately there’s no play-by-play on ESPN for the game, so I can’t break them down. But I thought his performance should be noted here.

5 Thoughts from Hofstra’s 83-75 win over Iona

Iona rolled into the Mack Sports Complex at Hofstra with a 10-2 record and hopes of receiving an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament. The Gaels had been road warriors, winning six of their last seven, all away from home. But it was Hofstra, still searching for the right formula after the graduation of Charles Jenkins that pulled out that raced out to a 15-point halftime lead and pulled out a convincing 83-75 victory on Thursday night. Here’s five thoughts from that game, including some post game quotes.

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Saturday Round Up: Hofstra gets big win

Saturday was a busy day in college basketball. Besides Columbia’s win over Manhattan, full coverage of which you can find below, there were five other games on the schedule. Hofstra got the biggest win of the day, a 63-53 victory over Cleveland State, but there were some other good wins as well.

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SGOTW: St. Francis (NY) at Hofstra

This week’s Saturday Game of the Week features two local teams, Hofstra and St. Francis (NY) battling it out on Long Island. The Pride are coming off a tough loss to Oregon State earlier in the week, but they started the season out by defeating Long Island. The Terriers have lost two close games by a combined 10 points, is this the game St. Francis finally gets over the hump?

Continue reading “SGOTW: St. Francis (NY) at Hofstra”