The Hofstra men’s basketball team suffered their third loss of the season Tuesday, losing 87-73 in the semifinal of the Gulf Coast Showcase to Vermont.
In a game in which the Pride needed to rise to the challenge to play a tough-minded Vermont team, they instead came out flat, showing almost no signs of desire or will to play any defense.
Most sluggish starts are caused by poor shooting or just a few unlucky bounces, but the Pride allowed the Catamounts to jump out to an early 25-15 lead, with main scorer Ernie Duncan knocking down five three-pointers to open the game.
Duncan was lethal and got almost every shot he wanted. He ended up dropping 33 points on 10-16 shooting and 7-10 from downtown. In addition, he pitched in two steals, five rebounds and three assists.
Although Duncan was finding his stroke early, it seemed as though the Pride did not have much demeanor on defense.
Poor pick and roll switching, no defense at the rim and wide-open three-pointers allowed the Catamounts to jump out to a 49-28 lead at halftime. Head coach Joe Mihalich called for a timeout numerous times, but nothing changed. The Pride continued to play lackluster defense on almost every possession.
In the past few seasons, Hofstra has never been one of the stronger defensive teams in the Colonial Athletic Association, but this year, without having the same explosive offensive playmakers, the Pride is struggling just to stay afloat.
Several of their possessions end up with them needing to get a quick bucket from freshman guard Eli Pemberton.
Amongst a disappointing 2-3 start to the season, Pemberton has shined in almost every single game. Against the Catamount,s Pemberton had 21 points to go along with shooting 6-7 from the field.
The most impressive part was that Pemberton was able to get to the line where he converted 9-11 from the charity stripe. The same aggressive, attack the rack style is something that looks almost like former CAA Player of the Year winner Juan’ya Green.
Once again, other than Pemberton, it seemed as though there was no help elsewhere. Justin Wright-Foreman was the second leading scorer on the team with 16, but he went 0-4 from downtown. Rokas Gustys continues to struggle in the scoring column as he has yet to score over 11 points this season.
For the Catamounts, besides Duncan, the other top scorer was Payton Henson. He sat out the 2015-2016 campaign because he transferred from Tulane, but since the start of this year, he has come out firing.
His 16 point, 8 rebound game has been just one of his fine performances early on in the season. He currently averages 15.5 points per game, while shooting at a 57 percent clip.
The second half of the game was merely an exhibition at that point. Hofstra was blown out in the first half, shooting at just around 30 percent when the Catamounts were firing at all cylinders, shooting 58 percent. Henson and Duncan both put up 19 and 16 in the first half, respectively.
As the second half went on, the Pride tried to make small runs, but nothing seemed to break through. It seemed as though every time they stringed together a few buckets, the next possession they would allow a wide open three-pointer.
The biggest defensive issue they seem to have was switching on a pick and roll.
Almost every pick and roll play ended up resulting in a bucket, with most of them as wide open layups. At some point Coach Mihalich would think that they would learn, but instead the Pride made the same continuous defensive mistakes.
The Pride will look to get back to .500 when they face the University of South Dakota Wednesday in the third game of this Gulf Coast Showcase.
