By Brian Bohl
Over the past few weeks, Antoine Agudio stressed that he would rather lead the Pride to a deep postseason run than set personal records. But the senior guard might not need to choose after achieving one of those objectives.
Agudio made Hofstra history after connecting on a jump shot early in the second half in a 74-69 loss to Delaware Wednesday night. The basket moved the Huntington Station native into the top spot on the school’s all-time scoring list, surpassing Steve Nisenson’s career 2,222 points.
Agudio led the Pride (11-17, 7-10) with 24 points on 8-24 shooting. Four Blue Hens scored in double figures to put a damper on his evening as the Pride saw its three-game losing streak snapped at the Bob Carpenter Center.
A win would have tied Hofstra with Delaware in the CAA standings and provided them with a tiebreaker advantage heading into the conference tournament next week. Instead, Marc Egerson ensured the Blue Hens (13-15, 9-8) of a higher seed over the Pride, nearly posting a triple-double after pouring in 24 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.
“We missed a ton of easy shots and layups and that is what gets you down,” assistant coach Van Macon said to WRHU after the game. “For a five-minute span, they scored almost every time down the floor.”
Nisenson set the previous mark in three seasons from 1962-65 during an era when freshman were ineligible to play. Agudio, who needed 11 points to move up from the second position, set the milestone 1:47 into the second half, connecting on a 15-foot jump shot break the nearly half-century-old record. The 23-year-old guard tied Nisenson’s total with 19 seconds remaining in the first half, hitting another jump shot from the right elbow that sent the Pride into halftime down 27-25.
“I’m a little excited,” Agudio said before the game. “It’s been 43 years and I have a chance to come close to it. I would love to get it over with so I can focus on other things, like getting into the NCAA Tournament.”
Hofstra still claims the eighth spot in the 12-team conference and would play Towson in the first round if the season ended now.
Agudio’s team-orientated goals are still possible with a strong finish starting with Senior Day coming this Saturday in the regular season finale against Drexel.
Jack Hayes, the director of athletics, said a pregame event will honor both Agudio and Nisenson. The ceremony is expected to start about a half-hour before the noon start at the Mack Sports Complex.
“It’ll be a way of honoring Antoine but it’s also an opportunity to honor and recognize the achievement of Steve Nisenson to hold that record for 43 years,” Hayes said.
Agudio said the individual honors are humbling, yet he stressed he would rather bring Hofstra to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001. To make that a reality, the Pride will need to four straight games in the conference tournament. A win over Delaware would have given coach Tom Pecora’s team its first four-game winning streak of the season.
“Antoine wasn’t thinking about breaking this record tonight,” Hayes said. “He was thinking about the fact that we had a game here and throughout this whole stretch, that has been his focus. Down the line, he’ll have an opportunity to enjoy it but he wanted to win and that’s the kind of person he is and the type of people we have in our program.”
Delaware led by as much as 13 before Charles Jenkins and Agudio teamed for a second-half surge. Jenkins scored all but one of his 16 total points in the final 20 minutes, cutting the Blue Hens lead to 72-69 after Agudio’s three-pointer with 42 seconds left. Edwin Santiago answered with a dunk to re-establish the two-possession lead while ending Hofstra’s comeback hopes.