By Anders Jorstad – STAFF WRITER
The Hofstra Pride men’s basketball team can possibly accomplish a major feat for the first time since 2001: make the NCAA tournament and punch its ticket to March Madness.

Making it would no doubt be a huge accomplishment for the program. The Pride has seen three coaches since Jay Wright departed in 2001 for Villanova – in a school that is currently ranked as the top team in the nation under his lead.

The last time Hofstra made the NCAA tournament, the Pride was trying to figure out how to find a go-to scorer with Speedy Claxton declaring for the NBA draft a season before. Now 37 years old, Claxton is one of the assistant coaches trying to figure out how to get the Pride back to the tournament.

As of Feb. 21, the Pride sits at second place in the CAA with a 12-4 conference record.

University of North Carolina at Wilmington is at first place with a 13-3 record and Hofstra has a chance to tie things up next week when the Pride visit the Seahawks on Thursday.

With 20 victories already secured in a much-improved CAA, Hofstra has all but locked up an NIT bid at the very least. Unfortunately, the conference isn’t likely to send more than one team to the Big Dance this season.

If Hofstra wants to punch its ticket to the NCAA tournament, it’s going to have to win the CAA tournament.

In order to do so, the Pride will have to go through a gauntlet. NIT bracketologists think the CAA could send as many as four or five teams to the second-tier tournament.

According to basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy, the top four CAA teams this season are all better than traditional basketball powers like Marquette, Virginia Tech, Stanford, University of Nevada Las Vegas and New Mexico.

Hofstra will have to defeat three of the conference’s top squads in three straight days to make it to the NCAA tournament.

At face value, Hofstra could be the best team in the conference. The Pride only has four losses in the CAA schedule so far.

Two of the losses were in overtime (one double-overtime) against James Madison, one of the other top-three teams.

Hofstra lost by three points to UNCW at home and fell to College of Charleston by nine on the road. The only clear loss on the schedule so far has been against the Cougars, and the Pride has a chance at redemption against them to close out the season.

The Pride swept its season series against some of the top teams (Towson, William & Mary and Northeastern) and held serve against the bottom-tier teams (Drexel, Delaware and Elon). UNCW is a talented team, but it just lost by 19 to William & Mary and fell to Towson earlier this season by 16.

So, Hofstra has the talent to win it all, but what’s the catch?

The Pride has to win three games in three days with one of the smallest benches in the country.

For most of the season, the Pride ran a seven-man rotation. In a blowout game against the Tribe, sixth man Malik Nichols suffered a season-ending injury. As a result, the Pride had to give bench players Andre Walker and Justin Wright-Foreman a few minutes per game to remove the load off of the other six players.

Even then, the two of them are only averaging eight minutes per game since Nichols’ injury. Meanwhile, Hofstra’s starters are averaging 36 minutes per game since the injury. The large number of minutes can be taxing on a player and lead to a major concern: fatigue.

Some may say that fatigue doesn’t play a large role in a college basketball game. In a 120-minute contest that might be the case.

But forcing a starter to rip up and down the court for 108 minutes over three days will be detrimental to even the most conditioned athlete. And in an environment where the opponent gets tougher as the tournament progresses, that can be a recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, the Pride has defied fatigue so far this season. Hofstra has actually performed slightly better during the second half of games (+2.9 point margin over their opponents) than the first half (+2.5). Whether the Pride can hold that trend in an intense setting remains to be seen.

The Pride certainly has the talent to battle for the conference championship, headlined by CAA preseason Player of the Year Juan’ya Green and explosive center Rokas Gustys. Will they be able to carry Hofstra to its first NCAA tournament appearance in 15 years, or will a taxing season wear the blue and gold down? We’ll find out when Hofstra heads down to Baltimore for the CAA tournament on Mar. 4.