By Ed Morrone
RICHMOND, Va.-At this time of year, Richmond serves as the city of dreams for hopeful CAA teams hoping to punch their tickets to the Big Dance. Unfortunately for Hofstra, Virginia’s capital city has been nothing more than a city of broken dreams in recent years and thanks to a stunning showing by George Mason in Saturday’s CAA Tournament quarterfinals, this time was no exception.
A year removed from becoming America’s best underdog story since Rocky Balboa, the Patriots again played that card in last weekend’s tournament, stunning the Pride to an unfathomably early postseason exit. In the 64-61 victory, Mason shot the lights out in the first half and held on for dear life as a furious Hofstra rally fell short in the final seconds.”In the first half they just stepped up the defensive intensity and we couldn’t match that,” said senior guard Loren Stokes, who struggled through a thigh bruise and a 4-for-13 shooting performance in his last shot at an NCAA Tournament berth. “They just executed better than we did.”
In a season with such lofty expectations, the Pride just never seemed to click against the determined Patriots. If not for Carlos Rivera’s torrid first half shooting (5-for-5 from three-point range), the 43-28 halftime deficit could have been much worse. Hofstra attempted to dig itself out of the hole by outscoring Mason by 12 in the second frame and finally shooting the ball with some efficiency. As a result, the Pride had a golden chance to send the game into overtime on a play that Hofstra fans will be talking (or groaning) about for years to come.
Down 64-61 with 8.4 seconds to go, Mason guard Jordan Carter missed the front end of a 1-in-1. The rebound ended up in Stokes’ hand, who handed it off to backup guard Greg Johnson. As the fastest player on the team, it was Johnson’s responsibility to drive coast to coast and with some time still left on the clock, kick the ball out to Rivera, Stokes or Antoine Agudio (13 points on 5 of 16 shooting), who would attempt to tie the game on a three-pointer.
However, the second part of that plan never had a chance to develop, as Johnson drove into the lane and puzzingly threw up a harmless layup attempt that missed long, setting off a wild celebration of green and yellow on the Richmond Coliseum floor.
“He’s [Johnson] a young kid who hasn’t played a ton of minutes for us,” head coach Tom Pecora said. “It’s a tough situation. He comes off the bench having not played for a long stretch, but I thought he’d be able to find one of these guys [Stokes, Rivera, Agudio] and get them the basketball.”
Johnson didn’t, so even though the circumstances are remarkably different than last year’s, the end result is still the same. Hofstra will lick its wounds and-hopefully for them-head off for the National Invitation Tournament, which at this point is all the team can ask for.
Johnson will undoubtedly serve as the scapegoat for Saturday’s loss, but the early exit from the CAA Tournament reflects a larger problem that has plagued the team all season-a lack of production from the frontcourt. Forwards Chris Gadley, Mike Davis-Sabb and Arminas Urbutis were essentially non-factors, putting more pressure on the guards to outperform Mason’s onslaught. The result was the worst combined effort from Agudio and Stokes this season, as the high scoring tandem never got into an offensive flow.
“I didn’t make many shots,” Stokes said. “The shots just weren’t falling tonight.”Unfortunately for the Pride, the shots didn’t fall at the most inopportune time, and as a result they headed home in disappointment, this time two rounds earlier than last year when it reached the CAA Championship game.
“The expectations for us are always high,” Agudio said. “We always come into the tournament hoping to play for a bid [to the NCAA Tournament]. It’s probably not our last game, so we just have to pick our heads up.”
That will be no easy task as the Pride will be forced to mull over another season of missed opportunities that again ended abruptly in Richmond, the city of broken dreams.
Pecora won’t be coaching in the NCAA Tournament this year after losing to GMU