MBB: Game 23 vs Elon on 1/30/20 at 7:00P.M.

[triplec2195]

When we beat Elon at home on 1/4 Buie had a career day scoring 44 points and was close to being unstoppable. We won that game 102-75. I wouldn't expect a repeat of that performance but would expect a repeat victory. Both Eli and Coburn had subpar offensive days but I expect that Eli will break out of his funk and start burying some jump shots and Coburn will continue playing like the Coburn of old being all over the court. We have a size advantage over Elon and I don't think they have anyone who can stop Kante so I expect him to have another strong game. He had 19 points in Hempstead on 1/4. We are 6.5 point favorites per Newsday.

[EvanJ]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/1/28/me ... swing.aspx is Hofstra's preview titled "MBB: Hofstra Heads South To Begin Key CAA Swing."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... game23.pdf is Hofstra's Game Notes.

https://elonphoenix.com/news/2020/1/28/ ... fstra.aspx is Elon's preview titled "Phoenix Prepares For Rematch With Hofstra."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Notes.pdf is Elon's Game Notes.

Elon is fourteenth with 10.1 threes per game and 63rd in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.17. That's out of 353 teams. They lead the CAA in both. They shoot threes well, but shoot twos so poorly that they're last in the CAA in field goal percentage. They're also last in points per game, point differential per game, and opponents' three-point field goal percentage. They lead in defensive rebound percentage, which is a team's defensive rebounds divided by the sum of their defensive rebounds and their opponents' offensive rebounds. In one-third of the 21 team categories, they are first or last in the CAA. On an individual level, graduate transfer Marcus Sheffield II leads them by a lot with 16.9 points. He's followed by three freshmen who have won Rookie of the Week. Hunter Woods averages 10.5, Hunter McIntosh (if you pay for Flo you will hear announcer Taylor Durham call him "Hunter Mac") averages 10.3, and Zac Ervin averages 8.7. Simon Wright is their leading returning scorer. He's fifth with 7.0 after averaging 1.9 last season. Wright has missed 2 games and started 18 of the 20 games he played in, but he last his starting spot to Chuck Hannah, Wright has played more minutes than Hannah, but on Saturday Hannah played 30 and Wright played 8. Kris Wooten, Federico Poser, and Andy Pack are the rest of their nine regulars. Four have had a majority of their field goal attempts be threes, two more have over 40 percent of their attempts be threes, Sheffield II has 32.7 percent of his attempts be threes, Hannah rarely shoots threes (5 of 71 attempts, which is 7.0 percent), and Poser has not attempted a three. 576 of their 617 threes (93.4 percent) have been attempted by their top six scorers, who all shoot threes .347 (Woods) to .392 (Sheffield II). Woods (6.7), Wright (5.7), and Sheffield II (4.8) are their top rebounders. McIntosh (3.0) and Sheffield II (2.7) lead them in assists. Like us, they rarely block shots. Poser leads them with 9, and Coburn leads us with 9. In 22 games each, we have 1 more block, 42 to 41. Woods leads them in steals with exactly 1 per game. They have had a whopping 16 foulouts. I wanted to compare that to the NCAA average, but the NCAA statistics page with national averages sometimes disappears and comes back, and its gone now.

[HUSID74]

Elon has been better lately so I don't expect a cakewalk but we must win this one with William & Mary coming up on Saturday....just hope we're not looking past this one as any team can beat any team in the CAA this year.

[EvanJ]

Buie is 10 points behind Richie Swartz, who's 31st in career points. Buie is within 100 of eight players, five of whom are recent. Buie has 1,097. Bernardi and Green scored 1,186, Gustys scored 1,184, Lester scored 1,139, and Moore scored 1,128.

Statistics links, betting lines, and KenPom predictions:

Us: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=283448 (us by 6 down from opening line of 6.5, 75-69 us)

Charleston at James Madison at 6:30 P.M. on CBS Sports Network: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=285648 (Charleston by 6, 80-75 Charleston)

Northeastern at William & Mary: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=282056 (W&M by 2, 73-71 W&M)

UNCW at Towson: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=282554 (Towson by 10.5, 72-59 Towson)

Travel partners Drexel and Delaware have off and play on Saturday at 2:00 P.M. at Delaware on SNY.

Edit: http://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/2020 ... on_30.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Elon."

JMU leads Charleston 13-8.

Edit: Both teams are using the same starters as in their last game.

Edit: The video calls three of Elon's starters; Sheffield II, Ervin, and Woods; guards/forwards. The mistakenly list all of our starters as guards. The game just started.

[EvanJ]

I'll start a new post for the game. We lead 9-6 with 15:50 left in the half. We made 3 of 5 threes and missed all 3 twos. Buie, Pemberton, and Ray made threes. Coburn is 0-3 with 2 being threes. Kante has a miss without any points or rebounds. Hunter McIntosh, Chuck Hannah, and Marcus Sheffield II scored twos for Elon. Nobody has attempted a free throw.

Edit: Ray made his second three, but then committed his second foul with 15:02 left in the half. Burgess replaced Ray.

Edit: We lead 17-8 with 13:17 left in the half, and Elon called timeout. Just over a sixth of the way through the game, Pemberton had our first points not from a three, and it was because his foot was on the line. Buie, Ray, and Pemberton are our only scorers. Elon has more scorers.

Edit: Kante scored to go up double-digits at 19-8. Then Sheffield II scored with 11:59 left to get a media timeout to go down 19-10, and Sheffield II will have a free throw for a three point play after being by Burgess. Burgess has 1 steal, 1 turnover, and 1 foul. We have 6 assists and 2 turnovers. Elon, who entered leading the CAA with a 1.17 assist-to-turnover ratio, has 1 assist and 6 turnovers. Sheffield II missed the free throw, Elon got the offensive rebound, they missed, Pemberton scored 2, Hannah scored 2, Pemberton scored 2, and Sheffield II scored 2 to go down 23-14.

[HofstraMathew]

8 assists on 9 field goals made for us. Pretty good ratio.

[EvanJ]

Our lead peaked at 12, went down to 8, and we leads 18-18 with 7:12 left in the half. Ray sat for 4:34 and committed his third foul 1:36 after re-entering with 8:52 left in the half. Trueheart, who averages 2.3, had a three point play, which is our only free throw attempt. He has 2 fouls. Buie and Pemberton haven't rested.

Edit: Kante had a three point play to go up 13, Buie got the lead back to 13, and Silverio got it to 14. Hunter Woods scored to go down 38-26. With 2:31 left, the under 4 media timeout happened when the announcer said something is being reviewed, but I don't know what.

Edit: Elon scored 5 to go down 40-31 with 1:17 left, and we called our use it or lose it timeout. Woods just made Elon's first three.

Edit: Sheffield II scored with 3 seconds left to go on a 7-0 run and cut our lead in half at 40-33. We will start the second half with the ball. After making our fifth three with 14:29 left, our only three the rest of the half was by Silverio with 2:55 left. In the last 7:12, we committed 7 turnovers, and Elon didn't commit any. We have more turnovers, 9 to 7. We have big advantages in rebounds at 21 to 12 and assists at 12 to 3. Pemberton has 11 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists, so he's on pace for a triple-double. He leads us in points and leads all players in rebounds and assists. Buie has 8 points, 3 rebounds, and 5 assists, but he has 3 turnovers. Kante has 9 points and made all 3 free throws, but has only 2 rebounds. Schutte had a miss and a rebound in 2 minutes. Ray scored 6 from threes without a miss, but only played 7 minutes due to foul trouble. Silverio shot 1-2 with both attempts being threes. Trueheart made his only field goal and got a three point play. Burgess didn't have a point, rebound, or assist in 7 minutes. Burgess was the first guard off the bench and played more than Silverio. 19 bench minutes is what we average per half. Sheffield II shot 5-6 and leads all scorers with 12. Woods scored 11. Elon had two players score 4, one player score 2, and five players went scoreless. Ervin played 14 minutes, Kris Wooten played 13 minutes, and they each missed 1 field goal and didn't score. Seth Fuller, who entered averaging 2.8 minutes per team game, played 2 minutes.

After trailing by 7 early, Charleston leads JMU 65-54. Towson leads UNCW 40-30. Northeastern leads W&M 31-28.

[EvanJ]

Here's a post for the second half. I missed Hofstra's first possession, which lasted 10 seconds until Ray missed a 3. Zac Ervin made a 3 with 19:29 left and make a 10-0 run to go down 40-36, but 3:48 later at a media timeout, Elon hasn't scored more, and we lead 46-36. Coburn committed an offensive foul with 16:54 left and another foul with 16:34 left to join Ray with 3 fouls. While typing, I missed Pemberton's three to go up 49-36.

Edit: With 14:00 left, Coburn committed his fourth foul, and Mihalich got a technical. Elon made 3 of 4 free throws to go down 49-39. The announcer thought Elon would get the ball after the free throws, but they don't. A technical gives two free throws and the ball back because two free throws wouldn't be any worse than a shooting foul or foul from the bonus. The technical added 2 free throws to the original 2, but it doesn't change the fact that the other team gets the ball after you get 2 regular free throws. I missed another three by Pemberton to go up 52-39. With 13:16 left, Pemberton is down and left. Elon scored 5 to go down 52-44.

Edit: Ray made a long three to go up 55-44. With 11:34 left, Kris Wooten stepped out of bounds, which is the second time Elon did that this half. Elon has 5 turnovers in the first 8:26 of the second half. Buie has 2 turnovers in the second half to make 5, and he hasn't shot in the second half. Pemberton tried agility to see if you could re-enter after the media timeout, but he couldn't. Trueheart came in.

Edit: I missed Buie score 2 to get to 10, and Pemberton made a three. 12 seconds after the media timeout, Pemberton replaced Trueheart. Coburn hasn't scored. Buie has 4 assists in the second half to reach 9. After having 6 rebounds and 6 assists at halftime, Pemberton hasn't had any of either in the second half. I said he was on pace for a triple-double, and maybe it was a jinx. We have our largest lead at 60-44.

Edit: With 10:54 left, Buie passed to Pemberton, who made a three, to give Buie his tenth assist for a double-double. The same thing happened 48 seconds later. With 8:02 left, Pemberton made a free throw, missed the second, Trueheart got the offensive rebound, and Buie made a three to go up 67-48. Elon scored 2, and Kante had his second three-point play to reach 14 and make the lead 20 at 70-50.

Edit: The closest game in the CAA is Northeastern leading 54-52 at W&M, and that game will finish before ours. I could stop watching our big lead to watch the end of that game.

[stuball888]

We shared the ball well and got it into hot hands. Best stat 22 assts on 30 buckets. Pemberton and Buie with very efficient games Pemba 26 points 7 boards and 7 assts. Buie 18 points 4 boards and 11 assts. Nice game by Kante with 16 points and 8 boards.

[HUSID74]

Good to see a relatively low stress game tonight...good contributions from the bench with 12 points split between Silverio and Trueheart. Burgess played quite a bit but did not score... North Carolina kid, family must have been at game.

Good to see W&M squeaked by NE...want them content for us on Sat.

Rest up boys, war at 4 pm!

[ZMAN3]

Watched last seconds of NU-W&M game. Tied Bolton makes 2nd of 2 FT's to put NU up by 1. Mary takes TO - get ball to Knight who drives 3/4 length of court right handed (he's a lefty). NU fails to stop him - in fact just step aside and allow a layup (right handed) with 1.8 left. NU's desperation shot fails. Mary wins by 1. So we're not only ones who allow last second end to end baskets.

[EvanJ]

Coburn didn't score, and Kante's 16 gives him 1 more than Coburn for the season. Kante and Trueheart had two three-point plays each. We only attempted 12 free throws, and we made 11 with Pemberton 3-4. Pemberton scored 26, shot 9-15, shot threes 5-8, had 7 rebounds, 7 assists, and his sum of fouls and turnovers was only 2 when the team sum was 32. Buie scored 18, shot 7-10, shot threes 4-6, had 11 assists, 4 rebounds, and played almost the whole game before being subbed out with 1:27 left. He had 4 steals and 5 turnovers. In addition to 16 points on 5-9 field goals and 6-6 free throws, Kante led us with 8 rebounds after having 4 fewer than Pemberton at halftime. Ray scored 14, most of which came from shooting threes 4-6. I don't have a way of finding out, but it must be rare to have three teammates make at least 4 threes and shoot threes at least .625. I don't have a way of checking all teams without doing them one at a time, but from 2010-2011 to before today we never had two players make at least 4 threes and shoot threes at least .625. SIlverio and Trueheart scored 6, but Trueheart committed 4 fouls in 13 minutes. For a time Trueheart was our only forward. Schutte played 1:31 and sat for 27:30 before coming in with 1:27 left to finish with no points and 1 rebound in 3 minutes. Klementowicz played the final 1:27 and had his second assist of the season and sixth of his career. He played while guard Miranda didn't.

[Wags]

Watched last seconds of NU-W&M game. Tied Bolton makes 2nd of 2 FT's to put NU up by 1. Mary takes TO - get ball to Knight who drives 3/4 length of court right handed (he's a lefty). NU fails to stop him - in fact just step aside and allow a layup (right handed) with 1.8 left. NU's desperation shot fails. Mary wins by 1. So we're not only ones who allow last second end to end baskets.

As HU goes to 7-3 in the CAA with a very solid road win, NU drops to just 5-5, with 3 losses to W&M and HU by a total of 5 pts, including twice two W&M by a total of 3 pts, each at the end. So, as much as we might complain about the 27-pt loss to W&M or not being able to close out against UDel at home or at CofC, you look at NU, and their fine line between being 5-5 when they could've been 8-2, and things could be much worse.

Good to see Pemberton have a big game again. Need more of that. Or at least more consistency. Also good to see Ray and Buie be efficient and Kante play well (continues to slowly improve) to complement Pemberton. If there's one negative in this game, it's the continued swings for Coburn. Would've liked to see him build some personal momentum off of his career-highs of 24 pts and 7 offensive boards in the win over Drexel, and he follows that up with a disappearing act of no pts. 0/5 fg, 0/4 from 3 in 25 minutes. Rather see him not get the 24-point game and consistently reach double figures instead of being a yo-yo game to game.

Buie had 3 more asts than Elon (11-8).
And 22 asts on 30 FGM is great. Need to see more of that, too. Great job sharing the ball, getting good looks and making shots.

[EvanJ]

As HU goes to 7-3 in the CAA with a very solid road win, NU drops to just 5-5, with 3 losses to W&M and HU by a total of 5 pts, including twice two W&M by a total of 3 pts, each at the end. So, as much as we might complain about the 27-pt loss to W&M or not being able to close out against UDel at home or at CofC, you look at NU, and their fine line between being 5-5 when they could've been 8-2, and things could be much worse.

NU has four losses by 2 and tonight by 1. They're a fine line from 10-0. They're +68 in CAA games, we're +50, and W&M is +41. W&M is 7-2 with a +14 differential in CAA games not against us.

We beat Elon by at least 23 for the third consecutive game. It's the second time from 2010-2011 to the present that we beat an opponent by at least 23 twice in a season, and the previous times were 86-58 hosting Drexel on January 21, 2015 and 81-57 at Drexel on February 15, 2015.

[Wags]

As HU goes to 7-3 in the CAA with a very solid road win, NU drops to just 5-5, with 3 losses to W&M and HU by a total of 5 pts, including twice two W&M by a total of 3 pts, each at the end. So, as much as we might complain about the 27-pt loss to W&M or not being able to close out against UDel at home or at CofC, you look at NU, and their fine line between being 5-5 when they could've been 8-2, and things could be much worse.

NU has four losses by 2 and tonight by 1. They're a fine line from 10-0. They're +68 in CAA games, we're +50, and W&M is +41. W&M is 7-2 with a +14 differential in CAA games not against us.

True, including the UCNW and UDel losses by identical 76-74 scores, including one in OT. Crazy how a few plays here and there are difference between 10-0 and 5-5. I could only imagine this board if that happened to HU... "They let so many chances get away! How could they be so close and not close it out so many times?! They don't know how to win!" Etc., etc. See? Could always be worse. 7-3 looks pretty good through NU's lens right now.

[Polito]

Um, NU has been dancing recently. I’ll take the trade off.

As predicted, almost on queue, Eli comes roaring back - welcome, we’ve missed ya!

Nice tuneup, the big one on sat - glad the napoleons had a battle, but they will be ready - team is healthy this time, let’s pls make them pay for the embarrassing fluke.

[Wags]

Um, NU has been dancing recently. I’ll take the trade off.

As predicted, almost on queue, Eli comes roaring back - welcome, we’ve missed ya!

Nice tuneup, the big one on sat - glad the napoleons had a battle, but they will be ready - team is healthy this time, let’s pls make them pay for the embarrassing fluke.

It's because NU is the defending champion that I said what I did above. You'd expect them to be a lot better than 5-5, especially when they had the chance to be as good as 10-0 with all of those narrow losses. So, to be a couple games ahead of their pace while in the mix near the top is not so bad right now.

[EvanJ]

Kante made all 6 free throws and has shot 15-17 (.882) in his last three games to raise his percentage from 34-59 (.576) to 49-76 (.645). .645 is an okay free throw percentage for a guy who shoots near the basket. Our percentage of .774 is 16th of 353 teams.

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/1/30/me ... ctory.aspx is Hofstra's recap titled "MBB: Pemberton And Buie Lead Hofstra To Convincing Victory." It says:

"The win was the Pride's eighth road victory of the season, tying Hofstra with San Diego State, Stephen F. Austin, Vermont, and William & Mary for the most in the nation."

The CAA leads all conferences with six teams that are above .500 away. The other four teams are 5-34 (.128) away). 50 percent of CAA teams have at least 5 away wins. 18.1 percent of teams in all other conferences have at least 5 away wins. 50.7 percent of teams not in the CAA are in conferences in which no more than one team has at least 5 away wins. 8 ranked teams (32 percent) have at least 5 away wins. Ranked teams have an average of 3.96 away wins, and Hofstra is over double that.

https://elonphoenix.com/news/2020/1/30/ ... night.aspx is Elon's recap titled "Elon Falls To Hofstra, 86-63, On Thursday Night."

[Wags]

Kante made all 6 free throws and has shot 15-17 (.882) in his last three games to raise his percentage from 34-59 (.576) to 49-76 (.645). .645 is an okay free throw percentage for a guy who shoots near the basket. Our percentage of .774 is 16th of 353 teams.

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/1/30/me ... ctory.aspx is Hofstra's recap titled "MBB: Pemberton And Buie Lead Hofstra To Convincing Victory." It says:

"The win was the Pride's eighth road victory of the season, tying Hofstra with San Diego State, Stephen F. Austin, Vermont, and William & Mary for the most in the nation."

Actually, I would say that for a big who does his work in the paint, and who is going to get fouled, you want him to shoot a higher FT% than 64.5% to take full advantage of the times he's going to get fouled down low. If you're a perimeter player and you're shooting that kind of FT%, you can make up for that by hitting some 3s. But for a guy like Kante, who lives in the paint, you need him to take advantage of the times he gets to the line (even though it's obviously common for perimeter players to shoot better at the line than bigs). So, on that, going 15/17 after starting 34/59 is yet another very encouraging thing added to the list about the slow but steady growth he's been showing in his game.

Last night, the 3s were falling. But that often doesn't happen with this team. That's why that other stat above about team FT shooting being among the best nationally -- 16th, at 77.4% -- is a great one for them. When their perimeter game bogs down, they need to attack and get to the line as much as possible. They've won several times that way this year, even despite poor shooting from the floor.

Also interesting that 2 of the 5 who have the most road wins are from the CAA - and that's good company to be in: three first-place teams, including the lone remaining unbeaten team in the nation (SDSU), a team that won at Duke (SFA) and another that's always a very solid program (Vermont)... although one of those two CAA teams is in that company partly at HU's own expense. But a chance for payback on that tomorrow!

[Cards]

So, on that, going 15/17 after starting 34/59 is yet another very encouraging thing added to the list about the slow but steady growth he's been showing in his game.

Regarding IK - Agree Wags, it's another important piece of his development/improvement. He really is gaining confidence and improving with more playing time. One thing he's got to be aware of though, that as he's improving, the guys (especially DB) are going to be looking for him more often. He still seems to be surprised by some of the feeds and passes he gets/misses - better than earlier in the year though.

be interested on your thoughts on this Wags - starting to see some of the old "matador defense" from IK that we used to see from RG. I always thought it stemmed from coach imploring the bigs to not get into foul trouble. Given our long standing lack of depth in the middle, I understand that approach/strategy, but I would still like to see a little more effort to clog up the middle or effort to dissuade opposing guards from driving the lane.