MBB Game 30 - C of C - 2/25/15 - Senior Night

[Jojogunne]

This is our last regular-season home game of 2014-15. Best wishes to SR Moussa Kone and GR Dion Nesmith on their post-Hofstra careers:

http://www.gohofstra.com/news/2015/2/23 ... 54529.aspx

[ZMAN3]

HU 10 point faves

[ProudofPride]

Ibrahim Djambo will be reunited with the coach who recruited him to Clemson, so it'll be interesting to watch any interactions between them.

[HUSID80]

All the best to Moussa and Dion. Two class acts who represented this University and the program with dignity. We will miss you both and cheer you both as you go on to bigger and better things. Hope you both go out out with a CAA CHampionship.

[ProudofPride]

Not only is it senior night, it's also GPA night and Headstrong night. Hofstra and WRHU Christian Heimall (who is fighting the same type of cancer as Nick Colleluori) was supposed to be in attendance for Headstrong stuff, but he tweeted that due to complications, he unfortunately won't be able to attend.

[EvanJ]

http://www.cofcsports.com/ViewArticle.d ... M_ID=14800 is College of Charleston's preview.
http://www.cofcsports.com/pdf9/3222415.pdf is College of Charleston's Game Notes.

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=67982&a=1 will have statistics and says Hofstra is starting Green, Tanksley, Nesmith, Bernardi, and Kone.

Edit: College of Charleston paragraph about CAA Tournament scenarios says:

"If CofC wins out and Elon (4-12) splits its last two, the Phoenix would be the No. 9 seed. […] If CofC splits its last two and Elon drops its last two, the Cougars would be the No. 9 seed by virtue of sweeping the Phoenix in regular-season play."

In both of those scenarios the teams would be tied, so unless I'm missing something the first sentence of that is wrong.

Edit: College of Charleston is starting Adjehi Baru (forward), Evan Bailey (forward), Camerone Johnson (guard), Joe Chealey (guard), and Canyon Barry (guard).

http://www.caasports.com/custompages/st ... m#team.ind has College of Charleston's statistics.

[EvanJ]

Bernardi made the only three-pointer of the first half as Hofstra made 1 of 10 and College of Charleston made 0 of 6. Bernardi became the second Hofstra player to made 82 three-pointers in a season after Agudio who made 82 in his freshman season and more than that in his last three seasons. Hofstra leads 31-14. What's worse, College of Charleston's 5-28 (.179) field goal percentage or Hofstra's 2-7 (.286) free throw percentage Kone has 14 points and Tanksley has 10. Green had 1 field goal attempt and no points, but contributed 4 rebounds and 5 assists. Donovan Gilmore leads College of Charleston with 5 points and Adjehi Baru leads all players with 6 rebounds, 1 more than Nichols, Bernardi, and Kone, who have 5 each.

[Wags]

On his senior night, Moussa Kone has as many points (14) as Charleston... Hofstra's made FG's also equals the Cougars points at the break.

Charleston started 2-for-2, then missed the next eight and finished the half 3-for-26.

Green has five assists and has taken only one shot (hasn't had to shoot, obviously).

[EvanJ]

College of Charleston had three players each miss all three of their field goal attempts and Joe Chealey made 1 out of 8. Hofstra leads 31-15.

Edit: Hofstra leads 45-28. Hofstra has made 3 three-pointers in the second half so far. Hofstra has made 3 out of 11 free throws. Hofstra committed their seventh foul to put College of Charleston in the bonus with 12:51 left. Gustys has 4 fouls, 2 turnovers, and 1 point in 4 minutes.

[EvanJ]

Bernardi became the second Hofstra player to made 82 three-pointers in a season after Agudio who made 82 in his freshman season and more than that in his last three seasons.

I'm quoting myself to say the announcers corrected me because I wasn't including Upshaw who made 91 three-pointers last season, which was tied with Agudio's second-highest season.
Tanksley made his first three-pointer to go up 57-30. Kone has a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds to lead all players in both of those categories with 7:04 left.

Edit: Green has 8 assists which is as many as the next two highest CAA players tonight combined. Six CAA teams are playing tonight. Hofstra leads 68-33 and Hofstra has made their last 11 free throws.

[EvanJ]

Hofstra won 73-40. It's the fewest points Hofstra allowed since a 44-39 win hosting Manhattan on December 9, 2009. That was 185 games ago.

Edit: I want to look up the last time Hofstra outscored their opponent by at least 16 points in each half and the last time Hofstra allowed 50 percent or fewer as many points as they allowed in the previous game.

Edit: The last time Hofstra allowed 50 percent or fewer as many points as they allowed in the previous game was probably in February 1992 (late in 1991-1992 but I don't have the dates) when Hofstra allowed 87 to Towson State and then 42 to Army. That was 708 games ago. The last time Hofstra outscored their opponent by at least 16 points in each half was December 10, 2014 at Coppin State.

Edit: Gonzalez and Walker played 2 minutes each at the end. In addition to Kone who I mentioned already, Bernardi had 12 points and a career-high 7 rebounds, Tanksley had 15 points, and Green had 10 points, 8 assists, and 7 rebounds. Tanksley and Green each made half of their field goals. Nesmith had 7 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists. Nichols had 7 points and 9 rebounds. Hofstra made 27.3 percent of their three-pointers and 62.5 percent of their two-pointers. Bernardi had 3 assists and led Hofstra with 3 steals. Anthony Stitt had 4 steals off the bench but missed all 7 of his field goals. Joe Chealey and Donovan Gilmore led College of Charleston with 11 points each, and they had nobody else score 7 or more, so Hofstra had 6 of the top 8 scorers. Canyon Barry, who leads College of Charleston in scoring, scored only 3 after scoring 21 against us last time. It was Barry's fewest points against a CAA team this season. Last season Barry scored 2 points hosting Hofstra and did not play at Hofstra due to injury.

Edit: http://www.gohofstra.com/news/2015/2/25 ... 52813.aspx is Hofstra's recap.
http://www.gohofstra.com/boxscore.aspx? ... ll&id=6434 is the box score. The attendance was 1,529 and the game took 1:53. Hofstra led for 37:34, it was tied for 1:29, and College of Charleston led for 41 seconds, but unfortunately the source of the statistics didn't make that add up to 40 minutes. Hofstra's largest led was 36. College of Charleston did not have any fast break points and Hofstra had 8.
Yesterday our strength of schedule was helped by North Carolina State beating North Carolina.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWUPc5az5_o has highlights.

[ProudofPride]

Quote from Charleston's recap: "The Cougars tied a season-low 40 points at Miami (Fla.) on Dec. 30, 2014 it marked their largest margin of loss (-33) this season."

Great to see Moussa Kone have a good game for his last one at the Mack.

[Wags]

In case anyone hasn't seen it, this is really nice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSB1chD ... e=youtu.be

Now, get a W at JMU and go down to Baltimore and make some noise so you can go out the ways you deserve, Moussa and Dion!

[Cards]

Did what we had to do. Can't recall seeing a team (CoC) shoot so poorly in a game - hopefully some of the reason for that was good defense.

Some observations:
In the second half, Nichols has handling the ball and bringing it up court many times like he was playing PG. Although he played OK, he looked out of position at times (IMO). Not sure why coach was doing this.

Bad game for Rokus - played minimal minutes and still fouled out. Handled the ball only a few times and managed to turn it over each time.

Good to see Kone and Nesmith have nice final home games - they are both class acts!

I have said this before, but I don't understand JAM and his approach to playing time. Obviously Green has a bad hand or thumb. His hand has been taped for the last few games, and when he goes to shoot free throws he's constantly shaking his hand like its bothering him. Given that, we're up by 30 pts in the second half and coach keeps him in. WHY?? If he's hurt, let him rest. If hes not hurt, GEEEZZ, let some other guys play.....up 30 in the second half against the worst team in the conf and coach cannot bring in Gonzalez for 10 minutes!!!! I don't get it. If I'm Gonzalez or Walker I'm very frustrated. The game was over 7 miuntes into the second half and these guys had to sit until "garbage time". What does that tell them????

Looks like we could play JMU last game of regular season and first playoff game.

[stuball888]

JAM is very set in his ways. We have often wondered why he didnt play Gustys and Kone together even for short stints. On the other side our womens coach Krista is starting to use her two bigs together. The result was we beat #22 JMU in their last game. They were unable to to get into the lane so they forced JMU to shoot from the outside and their shots were not falling.

[Polito]

First, a big congrats and THANK YOU to Kone and Nesmith - both have added great value to this team, and both have been great reps of the program and university - here's to a fantastic finish, a super conf tourney/CHAMP, and some postseason play!

As for the PT for certain guys, preaching to the choir with me - it makes no sense whatsoever - this game was over in the first half, 5 min into the second at the latest - refusing to get these guys min means they cannot be considered depth or useful for the conf tourney or any postseason - to me that just hurts the team in the long run, foolish IMO

I do like this staff and though i don't agree at all, I guess there are reasons we're not aware of... perhaps we'll understand more later, who knowsm

Didn't sound like a strong game from HU but they won at home comfortably, gotta take it considering their home performance this yr

Road games here on out!! Now's the time for the solid road play to pay off!! #ROLLPRIDE

[HU87]

Guys-- Eliel Gonzalez is a walk-on level player or worse. No exaggeration. If he is still on scholarship next year, I'll be VERY surprised. The guy is listed as a point guard but has no semblance of a handle. He isn't athletic, can't seem to shoot from the outside, and is completely out of control every time he gets the ball in his hands. It's a complete deer in head lights situation.

Yes, this could, in certain situations, be due to a lack of playing time. But I've watched every game this year, and in the 78 minutes he has played, he has 13 TO's and 14 PFs to go along with only 5 assists. He's also shooting 43% from the free throw line! Those are indicative stats any way you look at them. Giving him minutes, even in garbage time, does nothing for this team.

I've touched on Walker in the past-- we just don't know enough about the situation. If he transfers, it's a MAJOR loss and JAM will have to take responsibility for it. I really hope (and trust) that they have a plan together for him to have a successful career here at HU.

[dutchiedoright]

I do not think that Gonzolez nor Walker can play at this level, to be frankly honest.

[ZMAN3]

I do not think that Gonzolez nor Walker can play at this level, to be frankly honest.

Walker hasn't played enough for anyone to make that evaluation - he's got more athleticism in one hand than Gusty's has in his entire body - if they lose him it's not smart
Being a big Michigan St fan - Izzo plays his walk-on's more than JAM plays his scholarship players in garbage time. I'm going out on a limb here and say Izzo knows just a little bit more than JAM is ever going to! Furthermore if Walker wasn't ready he should've been redshirted. Exactly what bigs are we recruiting ?

[dutchiedoright]

how does Izzo figure in to this ?

I've seen walker play. He can't.