MBB Game 30 vs. Towson on 2/27/2020 at 7:00 P.M.

[EvanJ]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/2/25/me ... rsday.aspx is titled "MBB: Hofstra Looks To Capture Regular Season CAA Title On Thursday."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... game30.pdf is Hofstra's Game Notes.

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/2/25/me ... -week.aspx is titled "MBB: Buie Named MBWA Player Of The Week."

https://www.flohoops.com/articles/67169 ... e-its-2001 is titled "Hofstra's Current Run Has Pride Fans Ready To Party Like It's 2001."

https://www.flohoops.com/articles/67171 ... or-the-one is titled "I'll Be Quirky: One More For The One."

Edit: It says our win over Delaware was a unicorn score, meaning the first time we ever won by that score. It was our eleventh unicorn score of the season, which exceeds our ten from last season. Half of our 22 wins were unicorn scores.

https://www.flohoops.com/articles/67171 ... tournament is titled "5 Wild Cards Who Could Ultimately Decide The CAA Tournament." They are Coburn, W&M's graduate transfer point guard Bryce Barnes and junior guard Luke Loewe, Delaware sophomore forward Justyn Mutts, and Towson senior forward Nakye Sanders.

https://towsontigers.com/news/2020/2/25 ... trong.aspx is Towson's preview titled "Towson Headed To The Big Apple To Meet Hofstra." It says "Verrazzano-Narrows or Goethals Bridge," It has a geographical error because they need the Goethals or Outerbridge and Verrazano, and a spelling error because there is only one "z." The bridges named are not substitutes, so "or" is the wrong word.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Notes.pdf is Towson's Game Notes. Page 1 has a box telling the media how to pronounce Towson and saying that they have not been Towson State since July 1, 1997.

Towson's roster has 16 players, of whom two decided to redshirt before the season and one had season-ending surgery after two games. Nine players average at least 15.4 minutes per team game, which I would think is very unusual. Even among teams who use nine or more players regularly, the ninth most used player normally averages under 15 and maybe under 10. Their other four available players have combined for 39 points in 90 minutes. Towson has two starters from New York who went to another college first. Leading scorer Brian Fobbs is from Rochester and transferred from Genesee Community College. Third leading scorer and leading rebounder Nakye Sanders is from Staten Island and transferred from Duquesne. Towson starts three seniors. Unlike those two, Dennis Tunstall spent four seasons at Towson. He was a starter in his last two seasons. He's averaging 4.4 points and 5.7 rebounds, which is down from 5.7 points and 7.7 rebounds last season. His 1.3 blocks are third in the CAA behind W&M's Nathan Knight with 1.5 and Andy Van Vliet with 1.3 that's a higher exactly value than Tunstall's. Sophomore Allen Betrand is 11th in the CAA with 14.2 points per game and could be their leader next season.

Coach Pat Skerry was an assistant at six Division I schools, of which half are in the CAA now, but only W&M was in the CAA then. He faced us when he was an assistant at Northeastern in the AE, and he was an assistant at Charleston. Then he got to be an assistant in better conferences for Rhode Island, Providence, and Pittsburgh.

[triplec2195]

We're 7.5 point favorites and need to keep our winning streak going and clinch sole possession of first place. We keep rolling here on our way to the tourney.

[cactus]

Clinch tonight and start Connor Saturday!

[cactus]

Also re: evanj's post I was a long time outerbridge guy recently converted with the new goethals

[HUSID74]

Towson is tough physically and they certainly win the airport walk. Our guards are so much better and we should control this game but you never know.

We have not been great at home but our last two vs. Charleston and UNCW have been much better.

Let's clinch today and have a fun senior day Sat.

In addition ESPN gives us a 75.8% chance of winning.

[triplec2195]

It's always important to come out tough and control the game wire to wire but we have proved time and time again we can come from behind and win that way as well. Its just a lot more nail biting for everyone.

[EvanJ]

Clinch tonight and start Connor Saturday!

I hope we would start him even if we don't clinch today. I'm not saying he stinks, but if he starts, plays until the first media timeout, and costs us 5 points relative to what Ray or Coburn (whoever doesn't start) wouldn't have done, we should still beat JMU.

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

https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... m#team.ind has our statistics.

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

Pemberton enters with 34 consecutive free throws made, which is 1 fewer than Buie's streak earlier this season. The CAA record is 45 by VCU's Willie Taylor in 2001-2002, which was our first season in the CAA. His streak started after both regular season meetings, but he broke the old CAA record in their Semifinal win over us that happened because we were the 10 and beat 7 seed Towson 20 by 2 seed George Mason by 6.

Statistics links:

Us: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=289712 (us -7 moved 0.5 to Towson from the opening of us -7.5, KenPom predicts us 74-67)

Delaware at Charleston at 6:00 P.M. on CBS Sports Network: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=283467 (Charleston leads 26-24) (Charleston -4, KenPom predicts Charleston 73-68)

Drexel at UNCW at 7:00 P.M. http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=282077 (Drexel -1, KenPom predicts Drexel 68-67)

JMU at Northeastern at 8:00 P.M. (I don't know why it starts later) on NESN+: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=277399 (Northeastern -12, KenPom predicts Northeastern 81-68)

Elon is at W&M on Saturday after they have off today.

KenPom predicts two games to equal the line and two favorites to cover by 1.

[EvanJ]

Our announcers can't pronounce Towson's second leading scorer. They say "beh-trand," but it's "bee-trand."

Pemberton made a three 7 seconds in. After Brian Fobbs missed, Nakye Sanders got the offensive rebound by the basket and scored. Towson had a chance at a 4-3 when Dennis Tunstall got an offensive rebound by the basket, but he missed. Coburn made a three, blocked a shot, and Buie made a three to go up 9-2 and made Towson call timeout. Kante drew a shooting foul, made the first, and missed the second to make it 10-2. Charles Thompson got an offensive rebound by the basket and scored to go down 10-4. Thompson is their second bench forward, and he's different from their first bench forward, Juwan Gray. Thompson has shot 2 threes of 73 attempts, and Gray has shot 61 threes of 134 attempts. Thompson averages more rebounds per minute and blocks per minute than Gray. Kante scored to go up 12-4. Towson has a +5.1 rebound differential per game, and allowing three early offensive rebounds is bad. Towson went down 12-8, and Pemberton made a three to go up 15-8. None of our guards have made a two. Fobbs scored to go down 14-10.

Edit: Our lead that peaked at 12-4, but its' now 17-17. We've shot free throws 3-6 (Kante 2-4 and Coburn 1-2), and we haven't made a field goal in 3:36. The announcers can't pronounce Nakye Sanders. They say "na-kay," but it's "na-kigh." Nakye Sanders and Jakigh Dottin have first names that rhyme. Delaware leads Charleston 49-41. If they win and we beat Towson, Delaware clinches the 3.

[Hofstra]

Also re: evanj's post I was a long time outerbridge guy recently converted with the new goethals

As a lifelong Staten Islander up until last June, its Outerbridge all day without question. I hope ya'll taking that bridge down to DC for the tourney

Nakye Sanders is a Staten Islander also.

[EvanJ]

Betrand got an offensive rebound and scored to give Towson their first lead at 25-23, Coburn made a three to go up 26-25, got an offensive rebound and scored to give Towson a 27-26 lead, Coburn made a three to go up 29-27, Jason Gibson tied it, Kante gave us the lead with a dunk with 5:36 left, and we called timeout up 31-29. We've made six threes.

Edit: We missed three shots on one possession, and Nicolas Timberlake made an open three to go up 32-31. Then he had a three-point play. Then Fobbs scored on their fifth shot of a possession. After we committed a turnover, Towson has the ball up 37-31 with 3:04 left.

[Wags]

Towson is tough physically and they certainly win the airport walk.

Never heard the airport walk term... meaning?

Anyway, Towson's best offense in the first half was a missed shot.

27-14 on the boards, 13 offensive rebounds.
28-6 in the paint
20-3 in second-chance points.

Down 43-35 at the half... but Hofstra was also down the same margin at Towson before winning by that margin.

Hofstra is 14-1 when allowing <70 pts this year, 8-6 when allowing at least 70. That number in jeopardy with Towson only 27 away at halftime.

[cactus]

I'm assuming he's referring to their size and athleticism as they walk around as a team

Not happy with the old defense again today over helping and leaving the other team's best shooter open for dagger 3 pointers

[Wags]

Towson offensive rebounds: 23
Towson defensive rebounds: 22
Hofstra total rebounds: 23

67-57, Towson, at the U4 (3:53).

[Hofstra]

Clunker city. Gotta regroup and blow em out on Senior Day

[EvanJ]

In the first half, we shot threes well and twos horribly. In the second half, we shot twos a little better than average, shot threes poorly, and made 1 of 2 free throws. There were times when we thought we were fouled. We got closer to them in field goal attempts late in the game, but we still had 13 fewer. The bench played 11:59 and didn't score. Ray shot 0-5 in 32:22. That's 53:21, which is 26.7 percent (just over 4/15th) of the time. Buie made 2 threes, shot 2-14, and did not attempt a free throw. He and Pemberton played the whole game. Coburn led us with 21, Kante scored 20, Pemberton scored 18, and the rest of the team played 46.7 percent (just over 7/15ths) of the time with 6 points. Kante shot field goals 9-10 and free throws 2-4. His 7 rebounds were just below his average of 7.5. The announcers said about Towson's offensive rebounds that he needed help from our guards who needed to be closer to our basket after Towson's misses. Coburn shot field goals 6-10 with all of his attempts being threes, and free throws 3-4. He had only 1 rebound. He had 2 assists and our only 2 blocks. Pemberton shot 5-17, which was threes 3-6 and twos a horrible 2-11. After I wrote down his free throws made streak, he missed his next one. He shot free throws 5-6, and his streak of 38 tied W&M's David Cohn from 2017-2018 for second in CAA history. The NCAA consecutive free throws made record is 85 by Butler's Darnell Archey from 2001 to 2003. Players other than Coburn and Kante shot 7-36 (.194) and shot twos 2-17 (.118). Coburn didn't attempt a two, so everyone other than Kante shot twos 2-17. We shot free throws 10-14 (.714), so we weren't going inside and drawing fouls. Pemberton led us with 8 rebounds, which tied for lead with Jakigh Dottin. Dottin entered averaging 2.8 rebounds, and of the 13 players who played significantly, Dottin started with the second fewest rebounds per game. Buie led all players with 9 assists. He had 2 of our 12 turnovers, and even though we scored only 65 we had a good assist-to-turnover ratio of 16/9 = 1.78.

Brian Fobbs tied Coburn with 21 points, and he had 7 rebounds. Allen Betrand scored 14 and made two-thirds of his twos and two-thirds of his threes without attempting a free throw. Towson was -6 in his 27 minutes and +17 in the 13 minutes he didn't play. Nicholas Timberlake didn't start, but played a majority of the game with 25 minutes. He had 12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals, and led all players at +23. Nakye Sanders was their fourth and final double-digit scorer with 10 points and 7 rebounds. Dottin led them with 8 rebounds as I said, and Charles Thompson tied Fobbs and Sanders with 7 rebounds. Dottin, Thompson, and Timberlake gave them three bench players with at least 6 rebounds. I wish I could find out how rare that is. Dottin and Jason Gibson tied for their lead with 5 assists. Gibson shot field goals 2-8 and free throws 2-2 to score 6. Dennis Tunstall was quiet with 1 point and 6 rebounds.

Towson had more second chance points, 26 to 10, which means we had more in the second half, 7 to 6. Towson had an offensive rebound percentage of .615, and they entered leading the CAA at .327, and they went up to .338. That's a team's offensive rebounds divided by the sum of their offensive rebounds and their opponents' defensive rebounds. Towson had 3 more turnovers, but 5 more points off turnovers, 15 to 10. Towson had over double the points in the paint, 42 to 20, and all 24 bench points. Towson's bench scored as much as our players other than Coburn and Kante combined.

[EvanJ]

Charleston came back and got their offense on track with an 80-71 hosting Delaware. In a game that ended just after us, UNCW came back from down 5 at halftime to win 76-65 hosting Drexel, which is the same score we lost by. Northeastern leads JMU 68-48.

[Hof_Judge99]

As Eli said in the postgame Towson wanted the ball more tonight. Don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more embarrassing rebounding effort than that. But here’s the big picture. We have a chance to clinch the one seed at home on Saturday against a team that has beaten ONE team in our conference this year. We’ll be roughly 14 point favorites. If we lose to them again on senior day we don’t deserve to be the 1 seed.

[Wags]

No shot attempts again for the bench tonight. Outscored by Towson's bench, 24-0.
Also, Towson's starters were -9, -9, -6, +7 and +13, but their three bench players were +23, +19 and +17.

Kante (9/10) and Coburn (6/10) were a combined 15/20.
The rest of the team -- which in terms of shot attempts, consisted of Buie, Pemberton and Ray -- were a combined 7/36.

But give them credit for working through games like tonight. I saw Pemberton shooting well after a home loss in which he shot poorly several weeks back, and Buie, the same tonight: https://twitter.com/JonathanJWagner/sta ... 2635526144

This loss could actually be a blessing in disguise. For one, some say it's best not to go into a tournament on a big winning streak. Not sure if I agree, but the true benefit could be that Towson moves up to 3rd right now. If they stay there, maybe W&M knocks them out in the semis. If they drop to 4 or 5, maybe they win a q-final game and face Hofstra in the semis. Although they split, Towson led HU by 8 at the half in both meetings and their rebounding and physicality (as we saw tonight) pose a serious matchup problem for Hofstra. Had Hofstra won tonight, there would be a better chance of seeing Towson again in the semis. I think order of preference, matchup-wise, I'd rather see Charleston first, Delaware second and Towson third in the semifinals. So, tonight's loss can actually help Hofstra in D.C. Still have to see how things play with the final seedings on Sat and Sun though.

[Jojogunne]

I thought Kante played one of his best games of the season. We need him to play well in the post-season.

[Wags]

I thought Kante played one of his best games of the season. We need him to play well in the post-season.

Yes, but it's most important for Buie to play well for all three games in D.C.

Look at this difference in the two games against Towson:

Buie at Towson on 12/30: 35 pts, 9/14 fg, 11/15 ft; Hofstra won, 75-67
Buie vs Towson tonight: 6 pts, 2/14 fg, 0/0 ft; Hofstra lost, 76-65