Game 8 Hosting William & Mary on 1/2/2021 at 2:00 P.M.

[EvanJ]

Neither team has written a preview yet. Nobody needs the statistics link yet, and Hofstra doesn't have it, but W&M does. http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=318617 will have statistics during and after the game. W&M is 2-3. https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... M#team.ind has their statistics. Luke Loewe leads them with 15.6 points and 4.0 assists. Their other two double-digit scorers are freshmen. Yuri Covington averages 12.6 points and shoots threes 6-15 = .400, but he shoots twos 16-39 = .410, and he averages a whopping 5.2 turnovers. Connor Kochera averages 10.0 points and shoots threes better than twos. He shoots three 9-19 = .474. and twos 5-15 = .333. They have four players shooting threes .400 or better with at least 1 made per game in Loewe (8-20 = .400), Covington, Kochera, and sophomore Miguel Ayesa (4-10 = .400). Ayesa is a sophomore averaging 6.8 minutes, which is under half of the 14.9 minutes he averaged last season. Both last season (110 of 121) and this season (10 of 11), 10/11ths of his field goal attempts have been threes. Because most shooting fouls happen near the basket, he's played 474 minutes (447 last season and 27 this season) without attempting a free throw! Quinn Blair averages 9.2 points and 6.6 rebounds, and nobody else averages at least 4.5 rebounds. Mekhel Harvey averages 6.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks in 21.2 minutes. Ben Wight averages 4.0 points and 4.0 rebounds. Nobody else averages at least 2.0 rebounds. Thornton Scott averages 24.0 minutes, but he shot field goals 2-12 (1-9 threes and 1-3 twos), so he only averages 1.8 points. He averages 3.0 assists. Loewe averages 1.8 steals, and he's their only player who averages at least 1 steal. They have used 13 players, including one who played 5 minutes and one who played 2 minutes. My definition of a regular is at least 10 minutes per team game (so players who don't play in every game need to average more), and W&M and us have eight regulars.

[Hofstra]

Always love throwing a beating on Bill and Mary. Most arrogant douchey fans in the CAA. At the tournaments, they are insufferable. Most people on the boards dont go from here, so yall dont see it as much as the people that do (LOLOL, I know, i know, life happens.. Get down there when possible though)

Hope we open 2-0

[HUSID74]

According to Sagarin we should be 13-plus point favs including the meager home court advantage which this year is less than 2 points. Need to get off to a fast start in CAA play. Who knows how many games will actually be played due to COVID.

[Polito]

Hofstra my man I'm 100% with you on that.

I'm really eager to see how the squad does with this back to back scheduling - pretty tough to do against the same team, and that goes for everyone in the CAA. Wild year. I would expect that the team with the most developed depth will rise? Doubtful that the same guys will be "on" every series - I think that's been a big part in the back of MF's mind in playing a lot of young guys.

We know some of our guys can be a bit streaky or inconsistent from half to half game to game, so HU will need all hands on deck. Looking forward to seeing how they respond to the challenge.

They are young, but have some new talent out of strong programs which should grow over time in G Yuri Covington and G Connor Kochera. Sr G Luke Loewe can really play D, and did so effectively against HU last year. Guessing he will take Ray or Coburn to try and minimize HU's strengths. I don't think they can stop both Ray and Coburn, so that's an advantage, and I see another huge opp for Kante to have a big game inside as I don't see anyone who can really match him. Guard heavy. Would also feed the 4's and let them go to town, no one that can match them either.

They always seem to be a fairly well coached team that plays within themselves - I don't expect them to do too much this year, but that doesn't mean they won't be a tough out each time - I think they will be. Let's kick this thing off in a big way and bring the heat against them!

And here's hoping Zion is celebrating his fathers life in the way he needs to, and will be great to have him back whenever he is ready.

[Flying Dutchmen]

I'm not sure if the back to back game scheduling format will create an advantage or disadvantage yet, but I do know W&M's guard play stinks.

[EvanJ]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/12/31/m ... fstra.aspx is Hofstra's preview titled "MBB: Unique CAA Slate Begins This Weekend For Hofstra."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... 1game8.pdf is Hofstra's Game Notes. In career points, Ray needs 23 to tie Percy Johnson for 36th, 38 to tie Darius Burton for 35th, and 47 to tie Derrick Flowers for 34th.

https://tribeathletics.com/news/2020/12 ... n-2-3.aspx is W&M's preview. W&M has 41.8 percent of their minutes from freshmen. In three of their five games, they started three freshmen.

https://static.tribeathletics.com/custo ... ofstra.pdf is W&M's Game Notes.

[triplec2195]

I'm not sure if the back to back game scheduling format will create an advantage or disadvantage yet, but I do know W&M's guard play stinks.

FD curious how you know there guard play sucks have you seen any of their games?? Their freshman PG does turn the ball over more then 5x a game and they also don't shoot well from the FT line. They lost to Virginia by 36 points and lost big time to High Point. These back to back games probably are not going to bother us all that much with the number of kids we have been playing. Both Ray and Coburn play a lot of minutes and if the situation presents itself I would like to see Green picking up some more minutes. He's averaging 13.9 IDK how people would feel about this but I would like to see Green come in for Coburn and have Cramer at the 4 both on the court at the same time. Does anyone know whether this combo has happened this year and what are your thoughts. If Green can continue to hit the three with any consistency he could spell Coburn and of course Cramer's a handful in the paint. Maybe Bethea will finally get some minutes depending on what his family situation is and his injury which should be healed by now based on what the coaches have said.

[EvanJ]

I'm not sure if the back to back game scheduling format will create an advantage or disadvantage yet, but I do know W&M's guard play stinks.

FD curious how you know there guard play sucks have you seen any of their games?? Their freshman PG does turn the ball over more then 5x a game and they also don't shoot well from the FT line. They lost to Virginia by 36 points and lost big time to High Point. These back to back games probably are not going to bother us all that much with the number of kids we have been playing. Both Ray and Coburn play a lot of minutes and if the situation presents itself I would like to see Green picking up some more minutes. He's averaging 13.9 IDK how people would feel about this but I would like to see Green come in for Coburn and have Cramer at the 4 both on the court at the same time. Does anyone know whether this combo has happened this year and what are your thoughts. If Green can continue to hit the three with any consistency he could spell Coburn and of course Cramer's a handful in the paint. Maybe Bethea will finally get some minutes depending on what his family situation is and his injury which should be healed by now based on what the coaches have said.

Green and Cramer have never been on the court together. There were 13 times when neither of them was on the court, and some were extremely short. I think they should be on the court at the same time a little, especially if some of Trueheart, Silverio (I don't know why he didn't play in the last game), and Bethea are unavailable. In the last game, Masic was the only sub for Coburn, Ray, or Burgess.

[triplec2195]

We're anywhere from 9.5 to 10.5 favorites in this game. Peddle to the metal and kick Bill and Mary's butt. Like everyone else love to beat this team!!

[EvanJ]

http://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/2021 ... -mary.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: William & Mary." A unicorn score is when Hofstra wins by that score for the first time ever. None of our four wins were unicorn scores, but our 76-71 win at Richmond was our first win by that score since we won at Mulenberg in Game 12 of 26 in 1969-1970. Our 96-88 win over Monmouth was our first win by that score in almost 44 years. Pro-Football-Reference lists the frequency of every NFL score and the scores that have never happened, and I will tweet to Jerry if he wants to make that for our wins.

We are 4-3 for the fourth consecutive season.

We played two ranked teams (including Richmond who was only ranked in the Coaches Poll) for the first time since we lost to Kansas and Connecticut in 2009-2010. It was the third time in the Defiantly Dutch era, which started in 1993, that we played two ranked teams, and we have never played more than two ranked teams in that time. In 1998-1999 we lost to Maryland and St. John's.

Ray became the eighth 1,000 point scorer for us recruited by Mihalich, which ties him with Butch van Breda Kolff for the most in Hofstra history, and only three of the eight were only coached by him. The other five played under him and Frank Reilly, Dick Berg, or Jay Wright.

This is the sixth consecutive season that we had at least one player reach 1,000 points. The last season we didn't have that happen was in 2014-2015 which was the first season here for Juan'ya Green, Ameen Tanksley, Brian Bernardi, and Malik Nichols. Our other starter was Moussa Kone. He and Dion Nesmith were in their last season. Rokas Gustys was a freshman who became the star the next season after Kone graduated. Jamall Robinson, who transferred away, was our other regular that season.

Going into yesterday, Kante was one of 24 players averaging a points-rebounds double-double. I checked ESPN if saying "points-rebounds" was necessary because somebody was averaging a points-assists double-double, but nobody is. Cameron Tucker is the only player averaging double-digit assists. He averages 9.0 points and 10.0 assists for Alabama A&M, who has only played 2 games. In their second game, Alabama A&M won in double overtime, and Tucker had 3 assists after regulation.

Kvonn Cramer became our first sub to make at least 5 field goals without missing since Stepehan Nwaukoni shot 5-5 in a 85-75 loss to Belmont at Mohegan Sun on November 24, 2013.

This is the seventh consecutive season and fourteenth times in twenty seasons in the CAA that we were above .500 non-conference. That excludes CAA games played during non-conference play.

This will be the first time we play the same opponent on consecutive days. The only previous time we played the same opponent in consecutive regular season games was way before we were in Division I. We beat Queens on March 3, 1945 and lost to them six days later.

With twenty seasons in the CAA, we tied our most seasons in one conference. In 1992-1993, we were a member of the East Coast Conference (ECC) who played an independent schedule. If you exclude that, we were in the ECC for nineteen seasons.

KenPom predicts us to win 78-66. Jerry says that we are favored by 11.5, which is more than the 9.5 to 10.5 that triplec2195 said. We are 5-2 against the spread. I use https://www.vegasinsider.com/college-ba ... las-vegas/ which says we are favored by 10.5. It says the line opened at 15, and 4.5 is a big drop. The line must have been 11.5 when Jerry checked and gone down. Vegas Insider has the start time listed against Iona without the score, and doesn't have our game against Fairleigh Dickinson listed. We lost to Iona when we were favored, so we lost against the spread then, and we didn't cover against Stony Brook. I'm assuming we covered when we beat Fairleigh Dickinson by 15. Vegas Insider says our loss by 14 at Rutgers was a push, while other sites had the line slightly lower to let us win against the spread. In the five games Vegas Insider has, we have been over the over/under twice, which were at Monmouth and St. Bonaventure. Our win at Richmond had 147 points, and was barely under 148. The over/under for today is 144.5. The line and over/under make a score of 77.5-67.

In the other CAA games today:
Northeastern is favored by 6 hosting Elon at 12:00 P.M.
Drexel is favored by 3 hosting UNCW at 1:00 P.M.
Delaware is favored by 1.5 hosting College of Charleston at 2:00 P.M.
Our line of 10.5 is the sum of the other three games combined. James Madison and Towson are not playing because of Towson's coronavirus.

Before the game, FloHoops will stream a show about our 2019-2020 championship at 1:30 P.M. The show will be available on YouTube after the game. I'm not going to watch it live. https://www.youtube.com/c/HofstraPride/videos will have it.

[EvanJ]

I'll put these links in a new post:

FloHoops video if you pay: https://www.flohoops.com/events/6818540 ... fstra-mens

Statistics: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=318617

Statistics for Elon at Northeastern at 12:00 P.M. http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=319162

Statistics for UNCW at Drexel at 1:00 P.M.: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=318353

Statistics for Charleston at Delaware at 2:00 P.M.: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=318316

Our statistics: https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... M#team.ind

W&M's statistics: https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... M#team.ind

[cactus]

FYI, from Mike Neely:

The Hofstra University Department of Athletics, in conjunction with Pride Productions, is excited to announce the debut showing of "2019-20 Hofstra Basketball: A Celebration" tomorrow (Saturday, January 2) prior to the Pride's first Colonial Athletic Association game of the year.

The documentary chronicles the 2019-20 season from start to finish and includes interviews, highlights, and other clips that showcase the special season Hofstra put together en route to winning the CAA Championship.

The documentary will air prior to the start of Saturday's Hofstra vs. William & Mary game and be available for free on FloHoops. It will begin at approximately 1:30 p.m. and lead right into the broadcast of the game.

https://www.flohoops.com/live/23876

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[triplec2195]

This shut off twice right in the beginning??

[EvanJ]

We are starting our usual starters.

UNCW at Drexel was postponed or canceled because someone on UNCW has COVID-19. I doubt every game will be played. CAA Tournament seedings could be based on an unbalanced schedule. UNCW played nine non-conference games without any cancelations or postponements.

[triplec2195]

I have the game on via Flo and I’m getting a replay of the seaso that I already watched. Am I the only one having this problem?? Can’t be??

[Pride97]

Sounded like the unveiled some sort of banner commemorating last season. Would have been nice if they could have pointed a camera on it.

[Hof_Judge99]

I can’t be the only one who thinks our team is so, so, so much better without Silverio. Nice first half, especially on the defensive end.

[Pride97]

Burgess is playing well. Looks more aggressive and confident.

Kante is super consistent. Double double machine.

[triplec2195]

Ray hasn't played well in this game and honestly we're scoring in the paint why take the awful shots that we're taking from beyond the arc. Our three point shooting percentage must be pathetic in this game!! Also we need to play better D against Loewe he's the only one who can score for Bill and Mary!

[RollPride15]

Ray is 1-9 with 3 turnovers at the moment...we'll see if he can turn it on down the stretch and close it out.