Flying Dutchmen Fans

Clearly don't want to lose our undefeated record in the CAA to SB. Need to take care of business always against SB no matter what the sport!!

It was an ugly game but we'll take the W. That was a strange substitution ( Victory for Sunday) especially when Silas the better player today + V is a disaster from the FT line.
JoJo - appreciate your loyalty but DeCady is a horror show. Can't shoot AT ALL and Torres scored his 1st 7 points against him ( including beating him down the court for layups). And he was the primary defender against him. How Biggie lost his starting job to him beats me. Need him back for us to do anything "big"

HUSID74 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 9:13 am Shout out to Wags for predicting the Hofstra comeback to win during our halftime conversation. He had alot more confidence than me at that point!
Ok we won ugly but we still won and short-handed at that....nowlet's get some guys back for PAYBACK Thursday vs. Stony Brook.

Ha, I think I told you 61-60 in regulation then (changing it slightly from the 61-59 I posted here at halftime. Almost had it.

Great to see you again and to meet your grandson! He looks like a really sweet kid. I hope he enjoyed the game.

As all have said, ugly ugly ugly - that was a rough watch - but to play that poorly and still somehow come away with a conf win, take that W and run.

HU has been slipping a bit at times of late, and eventually we are going to get bit. This deal of having lengthy scoring draughts and where the potential CPOY completely disappears for the majority of the game, and we have silly TO's, it's just not going to work on the upper part of the league. We need to get settled a bit.

Thought the team created some nice open looks or solid scoring opps, just couldn't finish to save their lives. I think we got too 3 happy in this one and when you keep clanking deep shots it just keeps giving the opponent opps to score, and that's what happened. We really need Cruz to be the guy to stop the bleeding and he really didn't do that. He also was very poor at taking advantage of being double and sometimes tripled today, he almost never made them pay for it by finding what has to be 1-2 completely open players for easy scores. He was troubled and stifled a lot in this game. I know he still scored points, but if he wants to be a true big dog he's gonna have to do better going forward.

I thought the D was really strong as was the rebounding - strong at the FT line as well, and those things likely were the difference in this one. So although a frustrating game to watch offensively, I do take some positive in that we still managed to do well in other areas of the game and came away with another win.

I'm in the DeCady camp, I like him, and yes he has much to improve on - but that kid has value. I'm also a huge fan of Biggie and would love him back in the arsenal - hopefully he can heal up and return - I think that guy brings some x factor to games.

Gotta give Monmouth some credit as well, they played HU very tough, had a really good game plan and nearly pulled it off. Our challenge is that HU is likely to have a game like this in the conf tourney, so we are going to have to keep finding scrappy ways to win when the shots aren't falling. This game was at least an indicator we have that ability to do that, unlike in years past.

Win streak is cool, but I don't want that becoming a 'thing'. Just keep fine tuning our game, this team is going to get 'got' at some point, far from elite right now - but just need to win enough to get the top spot for the CAAT. HU should be able to grab a couple more wins here before the UNCW and CofC tests. 1 and 0 each game mentality.

Polito wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 3:36 pm This deal of having lengthy scoring draughts and where the potential CPOY completely disappears for the majority of the game, and we have silly TO's, it's just not going to work on the upper part of the league. We need to get settled a bit.

Aside from yesterday, they were actually doing a much better job of avoiding the same types of scoring droughts that plagued them last year, and it's why they pulled out wins that would've been losses last year.

I've pointed out Davis disappearing for stretches at times myself, the first time, in the Penn game, when he started fast and ended well, but did very little in the middle. He's had a few of those. But realistically, if he did scored consistently for 40 minutes, he'd be averaging 35-40 a game instead of the 21.7 ppg he's averaging (which has been very good). That's unrealistic to ask of anyone, on any team in the nation. At some point, anyone's top scorer disappears a bit, fatigues, is off for a while before picking it up again, gets double-teamed and taken out of the offense after starting hot, etc. I think overall, he's been great this year. And in fairness to him yesterday, when Rivera-Torres starts the second half with a 3 to put Monmouth up eight, Hofstra turned the game around by scoring the next 14, to lead by six. Ten of those 14 were scored by Davis, the other four by Edmead. And then the baton was passed to Edmead, where he was the guy for a while in the second half.

But the turnovers, yeah, that can be cleaned up. They are only 8th in the CAA in turnover margin, committing about as many (195) as they force (194). Obviously, you'd like to not only break even (same again, yesterday - forced 12, committed 12), but you'd like to be on the plus side in your favor with that. But, just like football, it's what you do with the TOs you get and what you allow off of the ones you commit that matter most. Although the TOs were even for each side yesterday, Monmouth had a key 18-8 advantage in Pts off TOs, which really hurts in a tight game. Even with yesterday, they corrected it a bit from the first half (11-3, Monmouth in Pts off TOs in the first half, only 7-5, Monmouth the rest of the way).

Wags wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 5:43 pm

Polito wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 3:36 pm This deal of having lengthy scoring draughts and where the potential CPOY completely disappears for the majority of the game, and we have silly TO's, it's just not going to work on the upper part of the league. We need to get settled a bit.

Aside from yesterday, they were actually doing a much better job of avoiding the same types of scoring droughts that plagued them last year, and it's why they pulled out wins that would've been losses last year.

I've pointed out Davis disappearing for stretches at times myself, the first time, in the Penn game, when he started fast and ended well, but did very little in the middle. He's had a few of those.

This also might be helped some if Speedy ever gave Cruz a rest. After OT yesterday the kid is AVERAGING 41 minutes a game over the 4 conference games. That's just comical. Roberts has shown flashes and Wills has earned more minutes imo (and I heard Speedy even joke as much in his presser yesterday). No reason we cant get Cruz off his feet for 2-3 min during the middle of the 1st half.

dutchPride86 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 6:06 pm

Wags wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 5:43 pm

Polito wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 3:36 pm This deal of having lengthy scoring draughts and where the potential CPOY completely disappears for the majority of the game, and we have silly TO's, it's just not going to work on the upper part of the league. We need to get settled a bit.

Aside from yesterday, they were actually doing a much better job of avoiding the same types of scoring droughts that plagued them last year, and it's why they pulled out wins that would've been losses last year.

I've pointed out Davis disappearing for stretches at times myself, the first time, in the Penn game, when he started fast and ended well, but did very little in the middle. He's had a few of those.

This also might be helped some if Speedy ever gave Cruz a rest. After OT yesterday the kid is AVERAGING 41 minutes a game over the 4 conference games. That's just comical. Roberts has shown flashes and Wills has earned more minutes imo (and I heard Speedy even joke as much in his presser yesterday). No reason we cant get Cruz off his feet for 2-3 min during the middle of the 1st half.

Yeah, we may see that.

Sloppy Game for sure - but this was the type of game I have left The Mack times before - asking "how did we lose to them" - we won - move on.

Monmouth - was a far better opponent then I would have thought - tough - tough D - could easily see them being a problem for someone in the CAA tourny.

Take aways - need Biggie back - big(gie) time - versatile, size - I prefer him off the bench - and I too like DeCady starting at PF. Certainly not for his shooting- but I think his athleticism and defense blends better with Paris (as our C). Feel (PG) Edmead - needs move the ball a bit more. - finding him getting into the habit of dribbling a bit more then he has in the past.

Still like this team so far - and hope they keep growing into a stronger unit.

Polito wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 3:36 pm Win streak is cool, but I don't want that becoming a 'thing'.

1 and 0 each game mentality.

You can hear from DeCady here that this is exactly the mentality that has been drilled into the team from the coaching staff:

https://x.com/HofstraMBB/status/2011134240297976292

DeCady repeatedly mentions the idea of focusing on "going 1-0" (exactly as Polito said above) the next game and not worrying about a win streak. That becomes tougher if the streak were to continue to grow and the team were to get more outside attention. That's what seemed to happen seven years ago, when they had that 16-game winning streak, they started appearing places like NBC on a Sunday night, with Bruce Beck, they started to get noticed nationally, and then they got tripped up at Northeastern by double digits to end that streak.

That attention was great, and they SHOULD go on shows like that when something like that happens. It's great for the program, but with that, also comes more pressure to keep a streak like that going. Not an issue right now as we are still a long way away from that with eight straight wins and only four games into CAA play. Bottom line, this team and this staff gets it. Their focus isn't this current streak, it's only on the next game.

Thanks for posting this Wags it's nice to get to hear from some of these kids who don't often make it into the post pressers. We can get a feel for what their roles are and their take on the teams success so far this year. A lot of people still not buying into Josh' game including myself for a while but have come to appreciate the intensity that he brings. Being at the games you can see his intense focus and he leaves it on the court. His shooting and FT shooting needs to improve but not his motivation.