Game 1 @ Monmouth -- Rescheduled for 12/15/20, 7 PM on ESPN+

[Jojogunne]

Game 1 is on the schedule:

https://gohofstra.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule

Edit: Looks like the Monmouth game is on ESPN3:

https://www.espn.com/watch/schedule/_/t ... e/20201125

[Polito]

Thanks Jojo, here we go folks!

This is a great first test, esp on the road. No Salnave, but a well-coached top 1/3 MAAC team with a stud guard. We know HU will run their deep shooting game, but I would like / expect to see us eat them up from the inside in this contest. HU should have a real advantage in the post. Expecting some big things from Kante to start.

[EvanJ]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/11/20/m ... -2020.aspx is titled "MBB: 20 For 2020." Neither team wrote a regular preview. Jerry Beach hasn't written a preview yet.

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=321854 will have statistics. The statistics are done by the host school, and I'm happy that Monmouth uses Statbroadcast, which I like better than any of the other formats.

Our game at Rutgers on Sunday at 4:00 P.M. will be on Big Ten Network. They have a quadruple-header, and it's possible the previous game will end late and our game will start online only. We should hope Maryland has a quick win over Mount St. Mary's.

[triplec2195]

Not too many comments yet on the opening game. We have waited a long time for the upstart to college basketball and we open as a 1 to 1.5 point favorite in this game. IDK how they procure that line with so many unknowns to start the season. We know they have Dion Hammond a SG who averaged 16 points a game last year and they also have a few other starters back. Just like Newsday has said who will be the GUY we look to when we need a bucket or maybe a big defensive play? Will that be Kante or big game Ray or could be Coburn? Maybe it will be one of the new kids and who is the PG here because clearly that may be the most important piece of the puzzle. Aside from everything else I'm anxious to see how this new team with new players looks coming out of the gate with great anticipation to see the play of Cramer and Green.

[HUSID74]

Based on past performances it will be Ray...tough for big guys to create their own shot. Could also see Coburn or even Silverio rise to the occasion as well.

Biggest question mark will be how the two headed point guard performs IMO.

[Polito]

When the team needs their go-to guy, you can bet $ it will be Big Play Ray. Others can do the job, no question, but when the game is on the line my full bet is the ball will be in Ray's hands.

Really excited to kick things off tonight, so many unknowns, so much to watch for, so much anticipation - great test, let's see where the team is at. Either way, this is the start of a wild journey!

[Jojogunne]

Game cancelled. More time to prepare for RU:

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/11/25/m ... celed.aspx

[Wags]

It's almost as if people STILL somehow don't get that the virus makes the timeline rather than our collective fatigue of dealing with it.

It's a shame we can't just ALL listen, do what we need to do and have things like college basketball without it being disrupted.

Hopefully, this will be the only one that gets canceled, but the odds are not great with the current numbers already extremely bad and pretty sure to get worse after this weekend.

Basketball-wise for HU, this hurts because playing in the building of a Top 25 team is a very tough way to start without having an earlier game under their belt. Tonight would have really helped them at Rutgers instead of going into that game cold, especially since Rutgers (as of now) will play tonight against Sacred Heart to shake off the rust. But with the already very unorthodox CAA schedule, missing Mhalich, adjusting to life without Desure and Eli, and a bunch of other things that will likely happen because of Covid this season, it's merely another one they'll have to deal with, rolling with the punches, as things come along. At least it'll be easier for the team to prepare for what I hope will be a nice and SAFE Thanksgiving for them. And on that note...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE! Enjoy and stay well!

[stuball888]

On a unrelated bite SBUs games against Bryant cancelled today I think that in order to get more games in the OOC schexule should be in state games That might help

[Wags]

On a unrelated bite SBUs games against Bryant cancelled today I think that in order to get more games in the OOC schexule should be in state games That might help

What would really help is waiting a couple more months until we have things more under control rather than trying to start a college basketball season at the height of the pandemic, with a record number of cases and hospitalizations. I don't understand what the rush was (besides prioritizing money over health). They are trying to start a sport they canceled in March with the virus much more out of control now than it was back then. It's just ignoring reality. I REALLY hope I'm wrong, but given how things spiked after Memorial Day weekend, the Fourth of July and Labor Day, we are likely in for some tough times after this weekend until probably a couple of weeks after New Year's.

But too late to delay the star now. Some teams are obviously already playing as of today and the schedules are already made, so they're going to try to play whatever games they can get in, but there may be a lot more cancelations around the country. The Sat/Sun, same opponent formats conferences are following for conference games could help because those act as sort of weekly, mini bubbles. But also, not exactly since there's still travel involved with that for the roads teams. This is not a great sign with games already being canceled on the first day of the season. Hope for the best.

[stuball888]

I said back in April that all college sports should be played in the spring What it would do is buy you time until the vaccine is ready Even Rick Pitino said it should be May madness instead of March Madness

[Wags]

I said back in April that all college sports should be played in the spring What it would do is buy you time until the vaccine is ready Even Rick Pitino said it should be May madness instead of March Madness

Yup.

Hofstra-Monmouth was one of 32 cancellations or postponements today. If that's the first day, what happens later?

[Polito]

Not sure I'm with you guys here. I'll try not to make this political, because I'm sure there will be strong differing views.

But we are way past the point of shutting down the country now, sorry. The time for that was 6 months ago. We dropped the ball. It's too late now. This nation now has severe fatigue from this thing, and you can say 'too bad' all you want, but that's not how human nature works. Regulations YES... shut down, hell no. Business, including sport, needs to happen as I've been saying, or this nations economy and educational system will collapse.

The argument can be made that perhaps it should, believe me, I know that's a worthy convo. But this country isn't ready for that. Life must go on now folks. Safely, with precaution, but on it must go, whether you like it or not. It isn't just college hoops, or college sports - pros are making it work. It can work with protocol and maintaining adaptability. And it needs to work.

Cases are spiking, that is true, but I'm not so sure about the hospitalizations and deaths, which is the primary concern. Those numbers don't seem to be matching the spikes, thankfully if true.

You want to make the case that health is more important than money... 100%, of course it is. But in this world you can't have one without the other, so it's not that black and white.

You don't understand the rush? Yes you do lol or you need to take a 101 economics course I've said for a long time now, sports need to happen, for better or worse, much of the American economy (and educational institutions) are built on them. We as a nation are not ready for that to fall off a cliff anymore than it has.

Universities have lost 10s of millions of dollars just by losing 1 NCAAT and having 1 altered football season. If you think they can survive some whacky plan to delay and maybe play a few games in the spring but no real guarantee things will be better, you are mistaken.

And frankly no one has any idea when a true effective vaccine will be ready for public consumption. Maybe early spring (sooner if we're lucky), but it might be much later too. Can't sit around watching the economy collapse forever, gotta make moves at some point. And as crazy as it sounds on the surface, sports is a BIG part of that.

[Wags]

Not sure I'm with you guys here. I'll try not to make this political, because I'm sure there will be strong differing views.

But we are way past the point of shutting down the country now, sorry. The time for that was 6 months ago. We dropped the ball. It's too late now. This nation now has severe fatigue from this thing, and you can say 'too bad' all you want, but that's not how human nature works. Regulations YES... shut down, hell no. Business, including sport, needs to happen as I've been saying, or this nations economy and educational system will collapse.

The argument can be made that perhaps it should, believe me, I know that's a worthy convo. But this country isn't ready for that. Life must go on now folks. Safely, with precaution, but on it must go, whether you like it or not. It isn't just college hoops, or college sports - pros are making it work. It can work with protocol and maintaining adaptability. And it needs to work.

Cases are spiking, that is true, but I'm not so sure about the hospitalizations and deaths, which is the primary concern. Those numbers don't seem to be matching the spikes, thankfully if true.

You want to make the case that health is more important than money... 100%, of course it is. But in this world you can't have one without the other, so it's not that black and white.

You don't understand the rush? Yes you do lol or you need to take a 101 economics course I've said for a long time now, sports need to happen, for better or worse, much of the American economy (and educational institutions) are built on them. We as a nation are not ready for that to fall off a cliff anymore than it has.

Universities have lost 10s of millions of dollars just by losing 1 NCAAT and having 1 altered football season. If you think they can survive some whacky plan to delay and maybe play a few games in the spring but no real guarantee things will be better, you are mistaken.

And frankly no one has any idea when a true effective vaccine will be ready for public consumption. Maybe early spring (sooner if we're lucky), but it might be much later too. Can't sit around watching the economy collapse forever, gotta make moves at some point. And as crazy as it sounds on the surface, sports is a BIG part of that.

Hospitalizations and deaths are absolutely at record-high levels. You can believe what you want with that, but those are facts. Goggle the numbers and the articles on it. It's also been on cable news daily. The U.S. set new records for hospitalizations every day from 11/10 through 11/22 and that continues to trend in the wrong direction in the past few days since. We used to have 1,000 deaths daily and considered that bad, and it was. Two days ago, we had 2,216. Yesterday, 2,304. We had just under 3,000 on 9/11.

Nowhere above did I say shutdown, but to start a college basketball season at the height of the pandemic might prove to be a very bad calculation. So far, that's off to bad start after just one day... 29 games canceled, 5 others postponed on the first day of the season. How many games will that be as the season continues and as cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise?

The NBA and NHL worked because they had bubbles. MLB and the NFL, though not in bubbles, are a little different than college hoops. Can't really compare.

Like I said, I agree, it's too late now because they already rushed and made their decision. But if you want to talk sports and economics, and what they probably should have done by waiting longer to start, how much more money would schools be able to have made if they had waited until the time they could have played in front of fans instead of empty arenas?

They didn't need a vaccine to make that viable, just a bit more patience to get the numbers down to a point where it would have made more sense to start a season more safely before the vaccine comes later on.

You can't have one without the other? Well, you can have health without the economy bouncing back fully. But you can't have an economy functioning well until you get the virus under control first. Right now, we're at the worst point we've been with it since it started. Check the numbers. I have been, since March.

It may all still work, and I really hope it does. But 34 games not played on the first day with over 2,000 daily deaths and about 180,000 new cases per day, both probably destined to go up after this weekend, tempers that hope a lot.

[fiftiespride]

It is true that the RATE of hospitalizations and deaths has declined as more younger people get it and our health community learn how to deal with it more effectively but all absolute numbers are increasing as new cases are being added exponentially. We are at around 12:8 million cumulative cases after around 10 months while more than a million having. been added in the past week. It is going to get MUCH worse in the coming weeks exhausting and over running more of our medical community. The vaccine news is very encouraging and should provide enormous help in the not too distant future. But in the mean time I think the Ivies had the right idea cancelling winter sports. I hope I am wrong and that we can have a meaningful season. A Happy and Safe Thanksgiving to you all.

[EvanJ]

Cases could go up after people see each other for Thanksgiving (which happened, but there aren't test results from it yet) and Christmas. I'm not confident that cases will go down enough to play a season of at least three months before the NCAA Tournament and finishing by late May. It's not like the NBA and NHL that were able to play in the summer. I watch YouTube videos by many people, and a lot of them see a lot of people. One family cares because they have a college student with asthma. One woman had dozens of people come to a gender reveal. One college freshman and two twins who I don't know if they are in college but they are that age said they got coronavirus. I haven't seen any older relatives get it. The people I watch are not a random sample of the population, but it shows how bad it is now that nobody I watch got coronavirus before recently.

[The Shadow]

The Hofstra vs Monmouth game is listed on the ESPN3 upcoming schedule for Tuesday, December 15th at 7:00pm.