UNIONDALE, N.Y — Establishing a team identity with a new roster takes time. At some point this season, the Hofstra Pride may know what its hallmark may be. For now, Hofstra’s identity is simply winning — however the Pride can.
Although there is still plenty of time for Hofstra (3-0) to figure out what kind of team it will become as a still very young college basketball season unravels, the Pride has taken three very different paths while remaining consistent with at least one thing — staying unbeaten.
There was early cause for alarm in Hofstra’s season opener, when the Pride trailed by seven points at home late in the first half to Division III Old Westbury before rolling to a 27-point win.
Hofstra then passed its first real test with two strong halves while putting up 90 points in a 14-point home victory over Iona.
The Pride barely scored more than half that amount in the nightcap of the inaugural Icons of the Game event but it was just enough to earn a hard-fought 49-48 win over the Seton Hall Pirates (1-2) at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Wednesday night.
A late 15-7 run turned a four-point deficit with under eight minutes left into a four-point Hofstra lead before the Pride needed one last defensive stop on the game’s final possession to secure the win.
Hofstra’s victory wasn’t exactly like David taking down Goliath with a rock and a slingshot — especially with the Pirates’ offensive woes leading to a narrow season-opening 57-53 win over Saint Peter’s followed by Seton Hall’s first loss to a non-conference opponent at Walsh Gymnasium since 1989 (57-56) last week — but it was nonetheless a rock fight and a mild upset that ended with the Pride’s first win over a Big East Conference team in 19 years and Hofstra’s first victory while scoring fewer than 50 points since a 44-39 triumph over Manhattan on Dec. 9, 2009.
Appropriately, junior guard Jaquan Sanders — who after being a Seton Hall role player for two years, is now a key Hofstra starter — scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half, including seven during the decisive, game-turning run that put the Pride ahead for good after four ties and 11 lead changes.
Fellow new transfer, sophomore guard Jean Aranguren (13 points, game-high six assists), from Iona, was the only other Hofstra scorer in double figures. Together, he and Sanders mostly offset Seton Hall’s two lone double-figure scorers, senior transfer guards Chaunce Jenkins (game-best 18 points) and Dylan Addae-Wusu (11 points).
“It’s big-time for the program,” said fourth-year head coach and former Hofstra star point guard Craig “Speedy” Claxton, who was pitted against his longtime friend, ex-Seton Hall star point guard and current Pirates head coach Shaheen Holloway. “Whenever you get a Big East opponent on a neutral court, you want to put your best foot forward. I’m just happy with the way my guys played because it wasn’t a pretty game. We won an ugly game and sometimes you need those types of games to go forward and to win a championship.”
Claxton added, “It was weird,” going against Holloway for the first time with the two as coaches. “Sha is my guy. I wish this win would have come against another Big East opponent but I wish Sha the best.”
Early on, it was Holloway’s squad that started better. It took a while just for Claxton’s team just to get on the scoreboard, with Hofstra opting for 3-point attempts on the Pride’s first eight shots and Hofstra making only one of those, a left-wing trey from sophomore guard Cruz Davis (nine points) — a newcomer who is on his third team — to get the Pride within 5-3 after 4:45.
Things stayed close for a while thereafter until seven straight Seton Hall points started a 10-2 spurt that gave the Pirates the game’s largest lead, 22-15, with 4:49 to go before halftime.
Hofstra closed the half with a 7-2 answer to send the teams to the locker room with Seton Hall up, 24-22.
Whereas the Pride struggled almost identically from the floor in each half (going 8-for-23 before intermission and 9-for-23 afterwards), the Pirates were considerably more accurate in the second half but added no more points after halftime than they had before that point thanks to not being able to get off that many shots from the field and missing a lot of free throws in the second half
Seton Hall went 9-for-31 from the floor and 3-for-4 from the foul line before the halftime break and 8-for-17 on field goals plus only 5-for-13 from the charity stripe thereafter.
“If we make [a few] more free throws, we win the game,” a frustrated Holloway said.
The game remained an intense slogfest through much of the second half as the Pirates opened a modest 34-29 lead on a driving layup by Jenkins with 12:36 remaining and led, 38-34, with less than eight minutes left before Sanders began Hofstra’s comeback with a pair of free throws with 7:47 to go.
Defense led to offense 2:25 later when a steal and fast break dunk by Cruz gave the Pride its first second-half lead, 40-39.
The lead volleyed back and forth from there before Seton Hall took its final advantage, 45-44, on a Jenkins 3-pointer with 2:41 remaining but Aranguren put Hofstra ahead to stay, 46-45, on a driving layup 22 seconds later before a transition left-wing 3-pointer from Sanders made it 49-45 with 1:45 left.
Addae-Wusu drained a second-chance 3-pointer with 51.5 seconds left to get the Pirates within 49-48 before the Pride was able to seal the win defensively.
After a right corner 3-pointer missed at one end, Seton Hall had a chance to win coming out of a time out with 14.9 seconds to go and after another inbounds pass with 6.7 seconds left. However, with the Hofstra locking down, the Pirates couldn’t get the ball close to the rim, settling for well-contested, desperation, left corner trey that glanced harmlessly off the left side of the backboard as time ran out.
“I’m extremely proud,” Claxton said of his players. “They fought down to that last buzzer and I thought that the toughest team won tonight.”
Although neither scored a point and had three total rebounds in 20 combined minutes, Claxton credited his bigs, and new transfer senior Michael Graham and junior returnee Silas Sunday, as being unsung heroes.
“I really think that our 5s won us this game,” Claxton said. “Both Michael and Silas, they held down the middle, especially Silas down the stretch.”
Yet Hofstra still needed enough offense to get by as the game wound down and that came in large part from Sanders, who was more concerned with getting another win for his new team than sticking it to his old one, along with some confidence building from his new teammate, Aranguren.
“It wasn’t so much worrying about me going against my old team, I was just worrying about us coming out with the win,” said Sanders, who added, “A shoutout to my teammate Jean… [he was telling me], ‘We need you to shoot. Stay confident.’ We had a conversation coming into the second half, and he told me, ‘I need you.’”
Preparation that includes taking a physical approach as group internally along with already building solid chemistry together was particularly helpful in a game that Hofstra won despite leading for just 6:38 to Seton Hall’s 30:22.
“I feel like everybody on [our] team is physical,” Sanders said. “It starts off in practice. We’re going at each other, making sure we get the best out of each other, from the coaching staff, down to the teammates… just staying physical every day in practice, I feel like that helps us when we play against other physical teams.”
Aranguren said, “We all feel very confident in each other… the chemistry and trusting each other, and the coaching staff, allowing us to play free… that helps us a lot.”
Sanders added, “When we first came in as a group, we knew it was [mostly] new guys and we also knew it was all guys that could score, that could play defense, play together… everybody’s buying in… [and] that helps us down the stretch [of games like tonight].”
Just three games in, Claxton isn’t quite sure just what he has yet but he already likes some of signs he’s seen, especially the versatility of winning consecutive games by posting 90 points and then coming out on top despite scoring under 50.
“We can win in a variety of ways,” Claxton said. “Last game, we won with our offense, tonight we won on the defensive end.”
Unfazed by what he views as an atypical offensive game, Claxton added, “We’ll have better performances on the offensive end going forward. I’m not too concerned about that but I’m extremely happy with the way we defended.
“This team, I’m still learning about them, but there’s no quit whether up, down, tied, this team is going to fight to the very last [second] and that’s the sign of a championship team. Do we have to improve in some areas? Sure, but it’s a new team so it’s going to take some time. They have to learn what we’re trying to do on both ends of the court. We’re slowly coming. I’m happy with where we’re at right now.”
Not only did Hofstra get the victory but the Pride also had the rare chance to scout its next opponent in action on the same floor just before taking that same floor itself. That’s because the Icons of the Game doubleheader — which paid homage to minority head coaches like Claxton and Holloway, and legendary coaches Tubby Smith (who sat courtside and was honored during a timeout) and the late John Thompson (who was honored with a scoreboard video tribute) — began with Louisiana Tech’s 76-66 win over Massachusetts, which will host Hofstra on Saturday as the Pride hopes to simultaneously keep winning while developing.