2019-20 schedule news

[EvanJ]

Why would Hofstra enter a tournament that gives 2 away games (1 in San Diego) and 2 neutral site games (in Florida) without any home games?

[HofstraHockey]

It's a recruiting tool- coaches love saying to kids "look, we go to Southern California and Florida!" Don't forget that you're trying to make a bunch of 18-21 year olds happy, and what better way than to get them out of class and on a plane to SoCal?

[EvanJ]

Hofstra shouldn't make more than one long out of conference trip per season. Spend the money on being able to fly rather than bus to Virginia, Boston, and out of conference games depending on the season like St. Bonaventure this season and VCU last season. Quicker travel could be a recruiting tool. When I saw VCU play at Hofstra, a VCU fan said they flew to Hofstra. For this season, it helps if UCLA is paying us (I don't know), but I'm not expecting us to be paid for tournaments, and I'm not expecting us to be paid by Cal State Fullerton unless we paid them last season.

Is missing more class time for long sports trips a good thing for athletes who won't be pro athletes and will need what they learn academically?

[HofstraPride1]

Hofstra shouldn't make more than one long out of conference trip per season. Spend the money on being able to fly rather than bus to Virginia, Boston, and out of conference games depending on the season like St. Bonaventure this season and VCU last season. Quicker travel could be a recruiting tool. When I saw VCU play at Hofstra, a VCU fan said they flew to Hofstra. For this season, it helps if UCLA is paying us (I don't know), but I'm not expecting us to be paid for tournaments, and I'm not expecting us to be paid by Cal State Fullerton unless we paid them last season.

Is missing more class time for long sports trips a good thing for athletes who won't be pro athletes and will need what they learn academically?

I understand your points about missed class from long trips, although Calif. trip overlaps with Thanksgiving break so they shouldn't miss too miss too many classes. As HofstraHockey said, these trips are a good recruiting tool so I'm all for it.

[EvanJ]

Hofstra sent an e-mail about season tickets. There are 14 home games, which means 5 out of conference. If we play 13 out of conference games again, and 2 are at a neutral site in Florida, then 6 are away, with half of them on one trip. Last season we played 7 home, 6 away, and no neutral site games until the CAA Tournament. Hofstra says the Women will also host 14 games, Men's season tickets will include Women's season tickets again, and the out of conference schedule for both genders will be released next week.

[HofstraHockey]

Hofstra shouldn't make more than one long out of conference trip per season. Spend the money on being able to fly rather than bus to Virginia, Boston, and out of conference games depending on the season like St. Bonaventure this season and VCU last season. Quicker travel could be a recruiting tool. When I saw VCU play at Hofstra, a VCU fan said they flew to Hofstra. For this season, it helps if UCLA is paying us (I don't know), but I'm not expecting us to be paid for tournaments, and I'm not expecting us to be paid by Cal State Fullerton unless we paid them last season.

Is missing more class time for long sports trips a good thing for athletes who won't be pro athletes and will need what they learn academically?

Softball misses half the month of February on their trips.

Believe me, nobody is getting excited about flying to Virignia instead of San Diego.

[Hofstra]

Hofstra shouldn't make more than one long out of conference trip per season. Spend the money on being able to fly rather than bus to Virginia, Boston, and out of conference games depending on the season like St. Bonaventure this season and VCU last season. Quicker travel could be a recruiting tool. When I saw VCU play at Hofstra, a VCU fan said they flew to Hofstra. For this season, it helps if UCLA is paying us (I don't know), but I'm not expecting us to be paid for tournaments, and I'm not expecting us to be paid by Cal State Fullerton unless we paid them last season.

Is missing more class time for long sports trips a good thing for athletes who won't be pro athletes and will need what they learn academically?

Softball misses half the month of February on their trips.

Believe me, nobody is getting excited about flying to Virignia instead of San Diego.

I think what Evan is saying is that flying to Virginia rather than busing there is beneficial to the team in regards to rest and travel. It sucks to take a bus down to Va, and play a game. Most people would rather just fly down there.

[EvanJ]

I think what Evan is saying is that flying to Virginia rather than busing there is beneficial to the team in regards to rest and travel. It sucks to take a bus down to Va, and play a game. Most people would rather just fly down there.

That's what I mean. Softball makes trips to Florida because of the weather here and that it's an outdoor sport, so it's not a fair comparison to basketball.

[HUSID74]

We get guaranteed money for these OOC road trips. This money helps pay for some of the charter flights we do take.
For example last year we chartered back from a road game, think it was W&M on a thursday as we had a home game on Sat.

[Cards]

Hofstra in the Naismith bracket (HU, Canisius, Holy Cross, Mercer) of the Boca Raton Beach classic. We play 2 of the 3 in our bracket on Dec 1st and 2nd.
Other bracket is the Hall of Fame bracket (FAU, St Bonn, SanDiego, and UIC).

https://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2018 ... anksgiving

[HU87]

Any intel on this field of teams? On quick glance, no high-majors, but some quality MM programs.

Are we a favorite? Does someone else return a lot of talent?

[EvanJ]

We get guaranteed money for these OOC road trips. This money helps pay for some of the charter flights we do take.
For example last year we chartered back from a road game, think it was W&M on a thursday as we had a home game on Sat.

The CAA had travel partners and nobody was away on Thursday and then home on Saturday. We won in triple overtime at W&M on Thursday and at Elon on Saturday. For every opponent other than your travel partner, you play them once on Thursday and once on Saturday.

[HUSID74]

We get guaranteed money for these OOC road trips. This money helps pay for some of the charter flights we do take.
For example last year we chartered back from a road game, think it was W&M on a thursday as we had a home game on Sat.

The CAA had travel partners and nobody was away on Thursday and then home on Saturday. We won in triple overtime at W&M on Thursday and at Elon on Saturday. For every opponent other than your travel partner, you play them once on Thursday and once on Saturday.

My mistake it was the year before last.

[cactus]

Non-conference schedule is currently being announced live on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/HofstraMBB/status/1 ... 9158603776

[Wags]

13 non-conference games (schedule here: https://gohofstra.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball)

Non-Conference Schedule Highlights:

- Three-game road trip to California; including a matchup with UCLA
- Will be Hofstra's first trip to the state of California since a game at Cal in 1999-2000
- Two-game trip to Florida for a pair of games played in Boca Raton

Opponent Quick Hits:

- First-ever meeting with San Jose State
- Will be third straight year facing Monmouth; Pride has won last two
- 20th all-time meeting with Bucknell but first since 2001-02
- First-ever meeting with New York Tech; schools separated by just 10 miles
- First meeting with UCLA since 2001 NCAA Tournament
- Second straight year facing Cal State Fullerton after meeting in Hempstead in 2018-19
- First-ever meeting with San Diego
- Eighth all-time meeting with Holy Cross; first possible meeting since 2007-08 (possible opponent)
- Will be fifth all-time meeting with Canisius; Pride is undefeated in series (possible opponent)
- Would be second-ever meeting with Mercer but first in over 40 years (1973-74) (possible opponent)
- Will be sixth meeting with St. Bonaventure; teams have split the last two in the entertaining series
- Hofstra owns a 22-5 all-time record against Stony Brook; including three straight wins
- Sixth all-time meeting with Princeton; first since 1991-92 - both teams once coached by Butch van Breda Kolff
- 66th meeting with Manhattan; Hofstra's most played non-conference opponent

The entire Colonial Athletic Association schedule will be released in mid-to-late August.

[cactus]

Nov 6 San Jose St
Nov 9 Monmouth
Nov 13 @ Bucknell
Nov 15 NY Tech
Nov 21 @ UCLA
Nov 24 @ CSF
Nov 27 @ San Diego
Dec 1-2 @ Boca Raton Beach Classic (Canisius, Holy Cross, or Mercer in the 2 games)
Dec 7 @ St. Bonaventure
Dec 10 Stonybrook
Dec 19 @ Princeton
Dec 22 Manhattan

Including conference play there will be 14 home games

[HU87]

Generally love this schedule. Lots of top150 opponents, not too many bottom 300's. Only gripe is the California to Florida run... lots of time to be away from home.

But again, in general, great job scheduling this-- must be one of our strongest top to bottom offerings in a long time.

[The Shadow]

Looks like Coach Joe and his assistants came up with a very representative out of conference 2019 schedule. To me, there were a few surprises in SJSU, Princeton, and Bucknell. The trips to Cali and Boca Raton should help in recruiting. I went to the St. Bonaventure message board, and discovered that the game on Saturday, December 7th is when the famous 1970 Bob Lanier team is honored on their 50th anniversary. Looking forward to the announcement for the CAA schedule dates coming sometime in August.

[Wags]

Hofstra shouldn't make more than one long out of conference trip per season. Spend the money on being able to fly rather than bus to Virginia, Boston, and out of conference games depending on the season like St. Bonaventure this season and VCU last season. Quicker travel could be a recruiting tool. When I saw VCU play at Hofstra, a VCU fan said they flew to Hofstra. For this season, it helps if UCLA is paying us (I don't know), but I'm not expecting us to be paid for tournaments, and I'm not expecting us to be paid by Cal State Fullerton unless we paid them last season.

Is missing more class time for long sports trips a good thing for athletes who won't be pro athletes and will need what they learn academically?

I understand your points about missed class from long trips, although Calif. trip overlaps with Thanksgiving break so they shouldn't miss too miss too many classes. As HofstraHockey said, these trips are a good recruiting tool so I'm all for it.

Agree, I don't think you're selling any recruits on shorter travel and early in the semester, built around Thanksgiving break, it's not a big deal. I do think you sell recruits on playing in a famed place like Pauley Pavillion against a name like UCLA (whether the Bruins figure to be good or not). And as noted elsewhere above, I do think you sell other recruits by getting out of NY when it starts to get colder and going to places like CA and FL. That also had its potential benefits for this year's team, which might be able to bond very well early in the year with the CA trip especially, as well as the short tourney in FL. Those trips could pay big dividends in building the type of team chemistry which could help throughout the regular season and for when it counts the most, in March.

Have had enough of the waste-of-time games against local non-DI's (it's every year, and this year, it's NY Tech) - would rather schedule a true test against a DI opponent. But the trips to St. Bonaventure, Bucknell and Princeton are good tests, interesting games and will help the team become battle-tested for CAA play. Keeping the local rivalry each year with Stony Brook is always great (though, they should really come up with some sort of bragging rights trophy like they do with some intrastate college football rivalries elsewhere and perhaps wear special uniforms that say NASSAU and SUFFOLK on the front of the jerseys for that one).

Overall, it's a pretty good, pretty interesting non-conference schedule this year, though not challenging enough to get any sort of at-large bid without winning almost all of them and going at least 15-3 or better in CAA play. But then, you have to be realistic about how good the team figures to be and who they're able to schedule anyway. So all in all, it's a good schedule and a good test as a comprehensive OOC slate of games for next year's team. That said, I'd still like to just once get a big name at home when we see other CAA teams do it (like Northeastern drawing Michigan State recently at the far less impressive Matthews Arena compared to The Mack).

[Polito]

Not bad, some solid, interesting games, really like UCLA of course but also dig the other calis, Bucknell, Princeton

But weak home games, all the good stuff away. FL tourney is blah, HU in the softest group so just a play to pad wins if they can. CofC has OK St and VCU at HOME. I’m sure there are other examples just didnt look - pretty frustrating to me yr after yr - guess we’re still pretending those kind of teams are all afraid to play Hofstra...

So all in all, decent with some cool new teams, but next to nothing exciting at home, and that’s just not what this program should be producing at this point.

Should see a real good win total again though. I do get it, I just think that matters a lot more to JM and Co than it should - too much job security / image focus and false chest pounding about the program beating a bunch of poor teams - once in a while I’d really like see this program schedule to win respect rather than a bunch of soft Ws. Doesn’t have to be every yr, but would be nice to see sometimes. Personal preference maybe... and the ultimate is respect is of course to go dancing, so I’d care a heckuva lot less about this if they do that!

Alternative of course is it’s also nice winning +18 games most yrs - and this yr should be no different