By Brian Bohl
RICHMOND, VA- All season long, the two controlled the backcourt. They were the scoring leaders on a team looking to develop consistency while acting as the Pride’s emotional leaders.
Senior Antoine Agudio and freshman Charles Jenkins represented the present and future, respectively, of Hofstra’s basketball program.
Despite the age difference, the guards shared the same look of disgust and angst as they walked off the Richmond Coliseum court Friday afternoon following an 81-66 season-ending loss to Towson.
Hofstra finished a disappointing campaign 12-18 after dropping the opening round contest in the CAA Tournament.
A young roster struggled to make a run up the standings in the regular season, though coach Tom Pecora said his team was starting to come together after winning four of the previous five contests.
But Jenkins and Agudio experienced a nightmarish first half against the Tigers. The two averaged a combined 37 points in the regular season-numbers aided by a frontcourt that struggled to generate consistent offense under the glass.
Towson keyed on the two guards in the opening 20 minutes. The Tigers held Jenkins, who captured the conference’s Rookie of the Year award the day prior, scoreless in the first half and held Agudio to 1-9 shooting.
After splitting the season series with its first-round opponent, the eighth-seeded Pride appeared to have an edge over No. 9 Towson considering the Tigers were 0-9 against conference foes away from home.
Yet Agudio’s college career ended without a chance to knock off top-ranked VCU in the quarterfinals, instead coming to an end in front of a nearly empty crowd in the tournament’s opening game.
The Huntington Station native scored 25 of 27 points in the second half; a misleading statistics inflated by two late, meaningless three-pointers in the final minutes.
Agudio exceeded his season scoring average of 22 points but finished 9-20 from the field with five turnovers.
His record-setting four-year run for the Pride ended with him as the leading scorer in Hofstra history and the fourth all-time leading scorer in the CAA record books. Only Navy’s David Robinson (2,669), George Mason’s Carlos Yates (2,420) and Richmond’s Johnny Newman (2,383) scored more than Agudio’s 2,278 points.
Hofstra cut an 18-point first-half deficit down to three before Agudio committed some costly turnovers and Towson beat the Pride’s full-court press. Agudio, who declined to talk with the media after the game, will leave school claiming three appearances in the NIT, but never capitalizing on an opportunity to bring his team to its first NCAA Tournament since 2001.
“Well, it’s tough, but he’s had a few games like that – some of our tougher losses,” said Pecora, who characterized the loss as a total team effort. “It kind of played out like some of our tough losses this year.”
Agudio, the 10-man rotation’s lone senior, consistently scored over 20 points, even as opposing defensives double-teamed him and rolled coverage his way. The former Walt Whitman High School standout still earned All-CAA first team honors for the second consecutive season, adding to a ledger that includes second-team honors in 2005-06 and the Rookie of the Year Award in 2004-05.
Jenkins will be expected to follow Agudio’s career trajectory after averaging 15 points.
The Queens native scored in double-figures in 26 of his first 28 games as the conference’s leading freshman scorer.
Next season, it will be up to Jenkins to lead a group expected to return junior forwards Dane Johnson and Darren Townes along with streaky guards Greg Johnson and Nathaniel Lester, who showed early promise as a true freshman before leveling off.
“We’ll go into next season as a very experienced team,” Pecora said. “I think the future is very bright.”
Even after a disappointing finish, Jenkins still gained valuable postseason experience.
As a red-shirt player in 2006-07, he could only watch from the sidelines as Hofstra lost in the CAA Tournament’s second round, ending a season in which the Pride was picked as the favorite to win the conference and perhaps go on a NCAA Tournament run with a veteran group that included Agudio, Loren Stokes and Carlos Rivera.
Jenkins knows that marked a missed opportunity, and will now be able to use another playoff loss as motivation for next season.
“The thing about is we always stay confident within each other and we always pick each other up when things are going bad,” Jenkins said.