After dropping the last two games to Sacred Heart and Manhattan College, the Pride men’s basketball game was able to squeak past Bradley University in the first game of the Gulf Coast Showcase down in Florida by a score of 92-90 to improve to .500 on the season at 2-2.
The Pride distributed the ball evenly throughout the game, with seven players reaching double-digit scoring totals.
Hofstra came out strong, leading for a majority of the first half, but Bradley was able to surge back and take the lead going into the second half on the back of Darrell Brown. Brown, a 5-foot-10 inch freshman guard from Memphis, Tennessee, scored 34 points for the Braves on 13-18 shooting from the field, including 5-7 from beyond the arc. Only two other Bradley players were in double figures, as Brown scored more than a third of the team’s points.
After struggling at the end of the first half, the Pride gathered and came out of the locker room rejuvenated. After shooting 38.2 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from deep in the first half, Hofstra shot 46.9 percent from the field in the second half, and also went 7-10 from three.
Rokas Gustys once again racked up another double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds. Gustys leads the NCAA in rebounding this year, averaging a monstrous 14.7 rebounds per game.
Freshman guard Eli Pemberton tallied 10 points, reaching double digit points for the fourth straight game to open up the season. Coming into the game against Bradley, Pemberton was averaging team high 19.3 points per game and shooting 67 percent from beyond the arc.
Senior guard Deron Powers scored a season high 19 points for the Pride. Powers was physical all game, getting to the line a bevy of times and converting 9 of his 10 attempts.
This was the first of a minimum two games for the Pride in this tournament; they will take on the Vermont Catamounts next, who defeated the Wofford Terriers in the first game of the afternoon by an even closer score of 60-59.
The Catamounts are 4-1 to start the year, Vermont is averaging 73.2 points per game this year, and the Pride is averaging 80. Only one player scored in double digits for Vermont, 6-foot-8 inch redshirt junior Payton Henson, who dropped 14 points.
The Pride has a chance to get to above .500 again for the first time since the first game of the year.
