Game #20 vs Towson

[Wags]

The offense was consistently solid: 40 pts on 48% shooting in each half.

But Towson? 32 pts on 41% shooting in the first half, 54 pts on 56% shooting in the second half.

If and when this team ever decides to play defense for a full 40 minutes, they'll compete with almost anyone in the CAA. When they play D like they did in the 2nd half tonight (and they normally do), they can lose to anyone in the league.

And there's just no point in Gustys getting to the line when he can't make ANY free throws. It's really ridiculous. It was 84-78 late, Hofstra with the ball on its final possession, which meant nothing... but which MIGHT have meant everything had Gustys been able to hit FTs like a Division I men's college basketball player should be able to. Instead he was 0-for-6 tonight.

[Cards]

Admittedly, I don't have any idea what goes on during our teams practices, but for JM to think that playing 2 bigs together is a bust, I say 1-6 is a bust. We got killed in the paint and on the boards. Towson is not a 3-point shooting team - best opportunity to try something new. Good decision JM, let's go even smaller! Hilarious....I saw plays today like JWF guarding Moto down low, or BB on the big at the baseline. While Sebatey might have trouble on D playing the wing 20 ft from the hoop, I think he has less trouble than JWF on Moto down low!

I think every time JM plans out a game he only thinks of the positive matchups we might have and TOTALLY ignores the matchups going the other way. This is really getting old.

I'm disappointed with the contributions from JR and TG - just not much there. And of course BB is a liability.

[Wags]

Admittedly, I don't have any idea what goes on during our teams practices, but for JM to think that playing 2 bigs together is a bust, I say 1-6 is a bust. We got killed in the paint and on the boards. Towson is not a 3-point shooting team - best opportunity to try something new. Good decision JM, let's go even smaller! Hilarious....I saw plays today like JWF guarding Moto down low, or BB on the big at the baseline. While Sebatey might have trouble on D playing the wing 20 ft from the hoop, I think he has less trouble than JWF on Moto down low!

I think every time JM plans out a game he only thinks of the positive matchups we might have and TOTALLY ignores the matchups going the other way. This is really getting old.

I'm disappointed with the contributions from JR and TG - just not much there. And of course BB is a liability.

Good points, but on Greer, he was playing well earlier, and could have continued to develop... until his minutes started to inexplicably go down. Hard to grow when you're on the bench. He should be taking up a chunk of Bernardi's minutes, starting with Gustys up front, with Power, Pemberton and JFW starting in the backcourt. Use Bernardi as a 3-pt. spark off the bench, since he offers little else and doesn't justify all of those minutes he gets.

[Wags]

Evan - if it's too difficult to find, don't go crazy, but if it's easy enough to determine, I was wondering... is the 50-4 edge off the bench for Towson the worst Hofstra has every been outscored off the bench? Can't ever remember a disparity off the bench like that.

[The Shadow]

HU seems to be destined for the 7 through 10 playin CAA tournament game on Friday March 3rd, unless there is a big turn in the team's performance. Allowing 54 points in a half, on your home court, will just not allow a college team to win many games. It must be a record to have a HU team outscored by a 50 to 4 margin for nonstarters. It seems this season is spiraling into a constant questioning on player's ability and coaching decisions. This happens to college teams that do not succeed. In two and a half weeks, it has quickly become a very frustrating CAA season, with no apparent change.

[Wags]

This one's for HUSID, who recently said Hofstra this season often seems to allow opponents to have career games against them...

That 50-4 bench-scoring edge for Towson was keyed by career-highs from a pair of role players, freshman guard Zane Martin (23 pts) and redshirt sophomore guard Jordan McNeil (13 pts), each of whom came into the game averaging just 3.1 ppg.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Nothing is won in January.

More like it.

Pathetic defensive effort. We blew a 16 point lead. I really thought we might be able to just outscore half the conference, and that still seems to be our goal, but this is the worst defensive team I've ever seen at Hofstra. Farrelly comes into the Lounge for his pregame peptalk and says they were trying to limit Towson to 5 offensive rebounds per half, ha. 14 offensive rebounds. Out rebounded 39-26. Molloy or CW Post would have given Towson a tougher time defensively tonight.

Ultimately, Towson got ridiculously hot in the second half, they hit 10 shots in a row at one point I believe, finished 21-22 from the line, that was the nail in the coffin. Kudos to them, I thought they made some good adjustments in the second half, and played well through foul trouble.

We had great offensive efforts from Pemba, JWF, and Powers, I thought they were awesome tonight. The frontcourt was putrid. The coaching staff has put too much pressure on Rok to carry the load this year. He's truly a role player offensively, and he's getting exploited defensively as our only forward, and we've made no adjustments to protect him in conference play.

Joe's chewing out the refs at the end of the game, but he just got outcoached tonight. Robinson plays 9 minutes, Greer 11 minutes in a game where Bernardi has 5 points in 36 minutes, and we're getting abused on the offensive glass. I have to say, Bernardi has been an easy target this year, but I don't believe his effort is the problem, I think he brings it, but the guy is just constantly put in a position to fail. He's a role player.

The bench only played 16.5% of the minutes tonight, 15.5% against UNCW, that is not sustainable. It made sense to ride the guards against a small UNCW lineup, but Towson destroyed our small lineup, it didn't make sense to limit Greer and Robinson's minutes tonight. Is it possible Robinson and Greer are playing through injuries?

[HUSID80]

You can't complain about the bench when you start Forman, he was the only scorer to come off of it, and the only other player of note to come off the bench is Sabety. This team is getting NOTHING from the 4 spot, both Robinson and Greer are bringing essentially nothing on the court...and yes there's a reason Greer is not playing much, it's because he looks lost on the court, or is not showing much effort...not sure which one is correct...probably a combination of both.
This team is severely limited in its options, and when Bernardi doesn't hit his shots, which is becoming a regular occurrence we struggle. You can say all you want about lack of defense, coaching etc but we just don't have the players, at least right now to compete successfully in this league...yes we were mauled on the boards but Towson is doing that to everyone...and believe me the coaches were aware of that...It was brought up by Coach Farrelly in the pre-game chalk talk...he said we must keep them off the offensive glass to win and we did not do it. Coupled with our atrocious free throw shooting and you have a prescription for an L

[Dooku25]

Nothing is won or lost in January to steal a quote from many a college basketball coach.

Nothing is won in January but can't something be lost in January? Nobody is winning this league if they have to win 4 games in 4 days. It looks like that will be our task unless somehow we rip off 5 wins a row. I really thought we would compete for the CAA title this year but let's be honest, at this point of the season, we are in deep trouble.

[EvanJ]

Evan - if it's too difficult to find, don't go crazy, but if it's easy enough to determine, I was wondering... is the 50-4 edge off the bench for Towson the worst Hofstra has every been outscored off the bench? Can't ever remember a disparity off the bench like that.

http://gohofstra.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball has links to all the box scores, and there's a drop-down menu at the top to go to previous seasons. I don't know of a way of finding bench points for every game of a season all in one place, and I'm not going to spend the time looking at every box score myself. If multiple people want to find out, we could have people volunteer to do a season or less of games each.

The bench only played 16.5% of the minutes tonight, 15.5% against UNCW, that is not sustainable. It made sense to ride the guards against a small UNCW lineup, but Towson destroyed our small lineup, it didn't make sense to limit Greer and Robinson's minutes tonight. Is it possible Robinson and Greer are playing through injuries?

Hofstra doesn't use their bench much, but 16.5% is still much higher than the 10.1% of minutes for Hofstra's bench last season. In 2005-2006, when Hofstra had their best RPI, the bench played 19.7% of the minutes.

On a good note, Gustys passed Adeleke for the fifth most career rebounds in Hofstra history and the most since David Taylor, who graduated in 1982. If Hofstra loses their first CAA Tournament game the next two times and plays 13 out of conference games next season, Gustys has 44 games left. If he averages 12 rebounds per game from now on, he will finish with 1,369 rebounds. He looks likely to finish second in Hofstra history behind Bill Thieben's 1,837 and ahead of John Irving's 1,186. He's only 85 rebounds behind David Taylor in third, so Gustys should be third by the end of the season.

Does anybody know if Hofstra has ever finished a season with their top two in points per game both being freshmen or sophomores? Pemberton and Wright-Foreman could do that.

[Wags]

You can't complain about the bench when you start Forman, he was the only scorer to come off of it, and the only other player of note to come off the bench is Sabety. This team is getting NOTHING from the 4 spot, both Robinson and Greer are bringing essentially nothing on the court...and yes there's a reason Greer is not playing much, it's because he looks lost on the court, or is not showing much effort...not sure which one is correct...probably a combination of both.
This team is severely limited in its options, and when Bernardi doesn't hit his shots, which is becoming a regular occurrence we struggle. You can say all you want about lack of defense, coaching etc but we just don't have the players, at least right now to compete successfully in this league...yes we were mauled on the boards but Towson is doing that to everyone...and believe me the coaches were aware of that...It was brought up by Coach Farrelly in the pre-game chalk talk...he said we must keep them off the offensive glass to win and we did not do it. Coupled with our atrocious free throw shooting and you have a prescription for an L

I was talking more from a defensive standpoint, yet again (as you've pointed out before) allowing opposing players to have career nights. 23 & 13 last night from a pair of guys who were each averaging 3.1 ppg. That's your ballgame right there.

[Wags]

Nothing is won in January.

Robinson plays 9 minutes, Greer 11 minutes in a game where Bernardi has 5 points in 36 minutes, and we're getting abused on the offensive glass.

Bernardi has been an easy target this year, but I don't believe his effort is the problem, I think he brings it, but the guy is just constantly put in a position to fail. He's a role player.

Towson destroyed our small lineup, it didn't make sense to limit Greer and Robinson's minutes tonight. Is it possible Robinson and Greer are playing through injuries?

Agree 100%. No injuries I've heard about. It's a system and philosphy that always values offense over defense, the thinking that Bernardi will heat up and you can ride him to wins rather than putting in other guys who will do the little, less glamorous things and who will defend better and rebound. Joe recently said after ANOTHER prior loss "You can be both, you can be good on offense and defense." Well then, he has to start doling out minutes like that and start stressing the other end of the floor like that.

I heard and saw (and I'm seeing now) the same with the Knicks, under D'Antoni, Rambis and now Hornacek. You can SAY whatever you want about making a SERIOUS commitment to playing defense and stopping your opponent, but until you actually make that commitment IN EARNEST, it's ALL just TALK!!

TALK doesn't win basketball games. DOING does.

And that starts with putting the right types of guys on the floor at the right times, and it ends with the players caring enough and having enough pride to WANT to defend. Some of it's their zone that doesn't work, some of it's simply having unfavorable mismatches not in their favor, which they can't do much about. But a LOT of it is HEART and actually COMMITTING to DOING what you SAY loss after loss, that you'll do "next time" but then never make a SERIOUS COMMITMENT to actually DOING.

The same defense they failed to play as Towson rallied was the same defense they showed while building the 16-point lead in the first half. You don't win games over short spurts and thinking you did your job. You win games with a CONSISTENT, SUSTAINED effort over 40 minutes until you put a team away and SECURE a win. This was an extremely winnable game last night, and they got comfortable and took their foot off the gas. Completely inexcusable for a team trying to break a 5-game winning streak, starting a key stretch of 5 of 6 at home.

If they don't bring it for on Saturday against Northeastern for a FULL 40 minutes, we shouldn't again this season hear about how there's no life in the building (though we probably will anyway). You want people to show up and back you? Give an effort that worth of their hard-earned money, valuable time and attendance!

[Jojogunne]

Pemberton had a terrific game, and two plays summed it up. At 4:13 in the game highlights, he took a rebound away from a Towson player to score under the basket. On the next play, he hit a three to narrow Towson's lead. Both efforts were very encouraging:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSJcwlc ... =18.748276

[Polito]

Pretty clear season is sinking fast, and the players and coaching staff are struggling mightily to right the ship.

But I suppose the bright spots to focus on would be the play and future impact of Pemba and JWF, and the fact that though they are losing, this team is not getting blown out at all. In every game, and all have been winnable.

The bad news there is as Stu reminded me, when your getting blown out it's because of talent, but when you're losing close games it's because of coaching.

With the losses mounting, its becoming very difficult to see it any differently. Heart goes out to them, because this is going to continue to be a tough year with a lot of frustrating (and fair) scrutiny - they are going to continue finding themselves having to explain and answer for the disaster that is unfolding until it is owned and corrected.

And it's entirely up to them to do so. Hope these close games are a sign of opportunity and they can turn things around.