By By Ed Morrone
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y.-Good thing it’s still early.
The Pride men’s basketball team opened an important season with a lethargic 64-51 win over Florida International University (FIU) Saturday at Hofstra Arena. The Pride tallied unimpressive totals in field goal percentage (18 for 46, 39.1 percent), three-point shooting (2 for 15, 13.3 percent) and most distressingly, free throw shooting (26 for 48, 54.2 percent), but was able to pull away from a feisty Golden Panthers team in the second half.
Standout junior point guard Loren Stokes picked up three offensive fouls in the first 10 minutes as the Pride fell behind, 21-10. However, instead of buckling in Stokes’ absence, the team rallied behind sophomore SG Antoine Agudio (17 points) and Stokes’ backup, freshman Greg Johnson. Stokes finished with four points, four fouls and four turnovers.Johnson was particularly impressive in his college debut, finishing with 12 points and five rebounds despite shooting 3 of 10 from the foul line.
“At first I was nervous, but the coaches just told me to be confident,” Johnson said. “I knew if I was confident then it would work.”
It worked, but it didn’t look good for most of the game.
The Pride shot just 8 for 25 from the field and 0 for 8 beyond the arc in the first half, and the team’s fortunes got worse when Stokes picked up his third foul with 5:28 remaining with FIU holding an 11-point lead.
But the Blue & Gold didn’t throw in the towel-even with Johnson and fellow freshman Arminas Urbutis on the floor-going on a 17-2 run to finish the half and taking a 27-23 lead into halftime.
“Hey, it’s the first game of the year, we won ugly but we found a way to win,” Pride head coach Tom Pecora said. “We have to make free throws. It’s something we’ve been working on and something we’ll continue to work on.”
The Golden Panthers were able to keep it moderately close in the opening minutes of the second half, but clutch shooting by Agudio and Johnson kept the Pride rolling as the team grabbed what it hopes will be the first of many wins this season.
The Pride will have to clean up its act quickly with its next two games on the road against Big East powers Notre Dame (11/22) and St. John’s (11/29). The team will return to Hofstra Arena on Dec. 1 against Binghamton University.
“I told Loren he’s allowed one bad game a year and today was it,” Pecora said. “He got it out of his system and we still were able to find a way to win. This was a good team win. There’s a lot of good things we can take away from this one.”