MBB Game 26 vs. Charleston on 2/13/20 at 7:00 P.M. on CBSSN

[EvanJ]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/2/11/me ... rsday.aspx is Hofstra's preview titled "MBB: Nationally-Televised First Place Showdown At The Mack On Thursday."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... game26.pdf is Hofstra's Game Notes.

Charleston has not written a preview yet.

[HofstraMathew]

I am pumped for this game. A win here can really separate us from the pack in the CAA.

[triplec2195]

I am pumped for this game. A win here can really separate us from the pack in the CAA.

The biggest game of the year to date!

[HUSID74]

As Joe says, "Every game is a big game this time of year."

Surprisingly, ESPN's matchup predictor gives us a 71.6% chance of winning this game.

[EvanJ]

As Joe says, "Every game is a big game this time of year."

Surprisingly, ESPN's matchup predictor gives us a 71.6% chance of winning this game.

The Sagarin gives probabilities for today's games. I found the games where the gap is closest to the gap between us and Charleston including home court today and for us, and it gave probabilities of 63%, 67%, 68%, 69%, and 71%, which have a mean of 67.6%. That made me think if the difference between us and Charleston is bigger in ESPN's BPI, but it's not. We're 16 spots better in the BPI and 34 spots better in the overall Sagarin. I don't give us a 71.6% chance. The probability and expected point differential have a strong positive correlation, but varies a little so that if Team A is more likely to beat Team B than Team C is to beat Team D, Team A doesn't have to have a better expected point differential than Team C. ESPN has us with an expected point differential of 5.8 while being more likely to win than Sacred Heart, who has an expected point differential of 6.3.

Among games in one-bid conferences, the biggest games tomorrow are us and 1 at 2 in the Ohio Valley with Murray State (18-6, 11-1 OVC) at Austin Peay (16-9, 10-2 OVC).

[triplec2195]

Looking at Newsday this morning they have us as a 3.5 favorite while Yahoo sports has us a 4.5 favorite. I expect that this will be a close game maybe similar to our first meeting where Eli only had 2 points in 36 minutes. That wont happen tonight and neither will Sam Miller going off for 20 points while only averaging 8.4 points a game. We need to keep Miller from getting open looks from beyond the arc but more importantly we need to keep Riller from exploding in a 30 point + game. I like our chances in a game that is of monumental importance. We could be a couple games in front of COC in the loss column and maybe would only have to concern ourselves with Delaware. We have a more favorable schedule after this game IMO.

[HUSID74]

ESPN has us as 4.5 pt favorites and continues to show us as having a 71.6 % chance of winning on their matchup predictor. Over under 145.

[triplec2195]

ESPN has us as 4.5 pt favorites and continues to show us as having a 71.6 % chance of winning on their matchup predictor. Over under 145.

Let's hope they have their fingers on the pulse.

[Hofstra]

Cant wait to watch this game. I really hope its a great showing on tv. Lively crowd, and most importantly crazy student section.

[Wags]

Is it 7 yet? Eager to get to The Mack and see this one.

It's not only big because it's for first place with Charleston and a win would ruin at least the head-head-head tiebreaker for CofC, but W&M hosts Drexel, Delaware is at Elon, and Towson is idle tonight. Those three are all within 1 1/2 games of HU, just like Charleston is. With that schedule, it's conceivable that all four teams bunched up right behind HU could gain ground on HU tonight with a CofC win. So, add that to the first-place battle at home on national TV, and there's a lot at stake tonight. With all of that, there's absolutely no excuse for having another slow start at home and for not playing with a major sense of urgency from the opening tip tonight.

Also keeping an eye Pemberton tonight. He owes CofC big time tonight after the last meeting. He had his scoring season-low and arguably his worst game of the season (2 pts, 1/8 fg, 0/2 from 3, 5 reb, no ast in 36 min) in HU's 69-67 loss at CofC on 1/18. He needs to help lead the way tonight.

[Polito]

Another big one similar to NU where I am not fully expecting HU to win - not in a negative sense, just don't love HU favored in huge games at home against a very seasoned program on the heels of such a huge previous game. Very glad they are viewed good enough to be though of course, just CoC is a tougher hill to climb IMO, and getting behind big to them would likely not be the kind of turnaround seen against NU.

Agree on full 40 focus tonight, will be a must to win. Team showed a lot in that NU game, they are fighters no doubt. Would be something to take down CofC in this spot on the heels of NU... now that would be some kind of statement right there. But I see this as a very hard game against a team with just as much, if not more, to prove. Dangerous recipe, CofC will come in hungry, so HU needs to hit the hardwood w/a chip to protect their house and be dogs tonight.

My take is that Riller is gonna get his, guy is a stud, but let's target to shut down McManus - versatile guy, feel like if he gets going in addition to Riller, it's tough mudding.

I'm in the city today, won't be able to make this one, but hope it's another high energy solid number crowd - fellas are gonna need the home support tonight!

[EvanJ]

My take is that Riller is gonna get his, guy is a stud, but let's target to shut down McManus - versatile guy, feel like if he gets going in addition to Riller, it's tough mudding.

McManus shoots twos and threes poorly. His strengths are rebounds (fourth on the team with 4.7) and free throw percentage .845. Brevin Galloway shoots threes .379 and makes 2.44 per game. Riller is second with 1.48 threes per game. If anybody other than Galloway makes 3 threes, it's bad. Sam Miller leads them in three-point percentage at .397. Zep Jasper is fourth in three-point percentage at .351 and threes made per game. The four starters other than McManus shoot threes at .351 with over 1 made per game. McManus shoots threes 15/58 = .259 with 25 games, so that's 0.6 per game. Their bench has made only 21 threes. Jaylen Richard (pronounced "ree-shard") leads the bench in threes made with 8, but shoots them 8/32 = exactly .25. Osinachi Smart, who is their top bench player, is their only player who has not attempted a three. He has 63 attempts. Trevon Reddish has 1 of 27 attempts be a three. Everyone else has over a fourth of his attempts be threes.

http://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/2020 ... eston.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Charleston."

https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... m#team.ind has Charleston's statistics.

For the second consecutive season, we graduate two starters and they graduate three. Riller and McManus are seniors they had for four seasons, and Miller is a senior with two seasons for Dayton and two seasons for Charleston.

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=289710 will have statistics.

[EvanJ]

We're starting our usual starters, but Charleston made a change. Osinichi Smart is starting over Sam Miller. Smart started the first 10 games before Miller became a starter. I don't know if Miller will come oof the bench or if he is unavailable. It matters to Kante and Schutte because they can defend Smart who doesn't shoot any threes, whereas all five of their starters shoot threes when Miller starts.

[EvanJ]

We lead 41-30 as the second half starts. Buie has 13, Pemberton has 12, and Ray has 8. Silverio hasn't played. Riller shot 3-9 and scored 6. Charleston doesn't have anybody with more than 2 rebounds.

Buie was honored at halftime for a 4.0 GPA.

[Hof_Judge99]

JWF is sitting in the 4th row behind the basket Hofstra is shooting on in the second half. Awesome to see him support.

[Polito]

To quote myself lol:

Would be something to take down CofC in this spot on the heels of NU... now that would be some kind of statement right there.

Man, that’s a big W right there. CAA on alert. Impressed again, did not expect it, team is gelling something fierce right now!!

[EvanJ]

We won 76-63. Pemberton led all scorers with 28. Kante shot field goals 5-7 and free throws 1-2 to have his sixth double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds. Ray scored 14. Buie scored 13, but had more technical fouls (1) than points (0) in the second half. He made 3 of 7 threes, but only 2 of 6 twos, and did not attempt a free throw. He led all players with 6 assists and tied with Riller for the most turnovers with 5. Coburn was our only starter in single-digits, but he shot 3-6 including threes 2-5. He had 8 points and was second among all players with 7 rebounds. Buie played the whole game, Pemberton played 38, Ray played 36, Coburn played 34, and Kante played 30. We didn't have many attempts, but shot 11-12 (.917), with Pemberton 6-6, Ray 4-4, and Kante 1-2. We led by double-digits for a lot of the second half, but we used our bench for only 3:13 in the second half! I don't like timeouts when the outcome is decided to waste time, but Hofstra could have called timeout to bring in Miranda, Klementowicz, Hughes, and Gibson Jr. Since Silverio must have been unavailable, we had 12 available players, and 8 of them played. Our 22 bench minutes had 2 points (Schutte shot 1-1), 2 missed field goals (Trueheart), 2 rebounds (1 by Schutte and 1 by Trueheart), 1 assist (Burgess), 2 fouls (1 by Schutte and 1 by Trueheart), 2 turnovers (Trueheart), and 1 block (Schutte). After contributing on Saturday, Trueheart was bad, although his +/- of +9 in 9 minutes was great. Schutte was -2 in 9 minutes, and Burgess was -2 in 4 minutes.

After having 6 at halftime, Riller finished with 27, but his shooting and other statistics were worse than he usually does. He made half of his field goals, only 1 of 6 threes, and missed his first 2 free throws before finishing 6-9, which lowered his percentage from .855 to .845. He had 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 fouls, 5 turnovers, 0 blocks, and 3 steals. He entered averaging 5.6 rebounds. He was their only double-digit scorer. Freshman Brenden Tucker was second with 9 points in 16 minutes off the bench, and he didn't miss. Brevin Galloway had 8 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and a whopping 6 steals. However, he shot 3-10 and committed 4 fouls. He hardly played as a freshman. As a sophomore and as a junior combined, his career-high is 4 fouls, which he has done four times, including the last two games! Zep Jasper, who averages 7.8, did not score and only took 3 shots, but his 5 assists were way above his average of 1.6. Sam Miller's 6 points and 3 rebounds were below his average, and he didn't block a shot after averaging 1.0 going in. Freshman DeAngelo Epps entered with 2 career blocks and had their only block.

We had more rebounds, 34 to 22, and it was our fewest rebounds allowed since we allowed 22 in 92-70 win at Delaware on March 2, 2019. That was the last game before the CAA Tournament and 30 games ago. We shot well at field goals .547, threes .389, and free throws .917, and we shot all of them better in the second half when we scored 6 fewer points. Our assist-to-turnover ratio of 14/17 = 0.82 and allowing 11 steals were bad. We led in second chance points at 7 to 2, points in the paint at 42 to 38, and fast break points at 8 to 6, so Charleston didn't get many fast break points from their steals. Charleston shot field goals .473. They made exactly 60 percent of their twos, exactly 25 percent of their threes, and exactly 60 percent of their free throws. They made their first free throw with 8:07 left, and made 5 of their 6 free throws in the last 1:49. Riller shot free throws 6-9, and Osinachi Smart missed 1. Jaylen Richard, who entered sixth on his team in field goal attempts, seventh in points, and eighth in minutes, did not play. I wonder if he was unavailable, and I'm going to ask on Twitter.

[EvanJ]

Here are the standings from the CAA's Bill Potter on Twitter:

"1. Hofstra 10-3
2. Delaware 9-4
3. Charleston 9-5 (CofC, WM are 1-1; both 1-1 vs. HOF; 1-0 vs. DEL; CofC is 2-0 vs. Towson, WM 0-1)
4. William & Mary 9-5
5. Towson 8-5
6. Northeastern 6-7
7. Drexel 6-7
8. Elon 5-9
9. UNCW 3-11
10. James Madison 2-11"

Northeastern is 1-0 against Drexel.

Edit: Either CBS Sports Network or I made a mistake. It was Kante's seventh double-double, not his sixth. Pemberton made 2 threes to tie Norman Richardson for fifth in Hofstra history with 192. Buie had 6 assists to pass Jenkins for fifth in Hofstra history and have the most by a Hofstra player since leader Claxton. He's 38 behind UNCW's John Goldsberry for tenth in CAA history. On Saturday Mihalich will try to become the 51st active coach to 400 wins.

[Wags]

Also keeping an eye Pemberton tonight. He owes CofC big time tonight after the last meeting. He had his scoring season-low and arguably his worst game of the season (2 pts, 1/8 fg, 0/2 from 3, 5 reb, no ast in 36 min) in HU's 69-67 loss at CofC on 1/18. He needs to help lead the way tonight.

Had a feeling. I figured he was going to have the opposite kind of game from what he showed against CofC the first time. And he did. Great to see Eli show out like that.

He's so much more about winning (which is great) than getting his own numbers, that he defers and is too passive in some games. But the irony of that is that his team wins more easily when he gets his numbers like he did tonight. He just needs to remember that.

And after the bad starts at home, Buie set the tone early tonight with a steal and layup, an assist and a 3 to give HU a 7-0 lead. They needed that after some of the bad starts at home this year. I think that was a gut-punch for CofC and they never quite recovered. From there, it was 17-9, then 41-30 at the half, and that early 7-0 start kept them above water when CofC got within 43-37 early in the second half, before they started to pull away after that.

Also, great to see Kante, Coburn, Schutte, and Buie - with a 4.0 GPA (!) honored among all of the other Hofstra student-athletes at halftime.

[Wags]

Buie had 6 assists to pass Jenkins for fifth in Hofstra history and have the most by a Hofstra player since leader Claxton.

On Saturday Mihalich will try to become the 51st active coach to 400 wins.

If Buie gets 8 assists in a win on Saturday, he'd get to 500 assists as they clinch 400 wins for Joe and another 20-win season.