A new era has begun for the Hofstra men’s basketball team, with first-year head coach Craig “Speedy” Claxton ready to lead the way. A lot of new faces have joined the team as well, but the objective remains the same: to win a Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Championship.

“I’m excited, this is my first year being the head coach, so [I’m] looking forward to the season,” Claxton said. “I think we’ve assembled a team that can compete for a [CAA] championship. That’s the main goal right now.”

Claxton worked under Mihalich as an assistant coach since 2013. Mihalich transitioned to a new role within the athletic department earlier this year, allowing Claxton to become head coach.

“Coach Mihalich is my mentor,” Claxton said. “He’s still at practice every day, he’s still giving us input and feedback. Just having him around means the world to me. The only [thing] I can do is keep winning, keep carrying on what he started here. That’s having a championship mindset and championship behavior.”

The Pride will not start off easy, as they begin the season on the road down in Texas when they take on the University of Houston, who is coming off a final four appearance and open the season as the No. 15 ranked team in the nation. The team’s fourth game, on the road against the No. 21 ranked University of Maryland Terrapins, will also be a challenge.

“Those games are all going to be hard, we know that,” Claxton said. “But we have upper classmen, and we think they’re up for the challenge, or else we would not have scheduled those games.”

Guard Jalen Ray returns to the Pride for a fifth year and his leadership will be crucial as the season goes forward, although he will be out for some time to start the season. Sophomore K’Vonn Cramer is also dealing with an injury, but it’s not as serious as Ray’s.

“K’Vonn [Cramer]’s been working himself back the last couple of days, and Jalen [Ray] has an ankle injury, so that’s pretty much week by week,” Claxton said. “Hopefully we can try to nip that in the bud.”

Only five players have returned from last year’s team: Ray, Cramer, junior Caleb Burgess, sophomore Zion Bethea and senior Omar Silverio. Claxton recruited five transfer players, as well as four freshmen.

“It’s going to take some time,” Claxton said. “You throw that in Jalen [Ray] and K’Vonn [Cramer] being hurt for a significant amount of time here in the preseason, it’s going to take a little while to build chemistry.”

Due to those injuries, especially Ray’s, Claxton expects big things for the time being from Burgess and Silverio.

“[Burgess] is a leader, [Cramer] is a leader. Hopefully we get [Ray] back sooner rather than later. Those ankle injuries are tough, they take some time to heal from,” Claxton said. “We’ll definitely have [Burgess] step up and hopefully he can fill that void along with [Silverio]. [Silverio’s] a proven player in this program, he’s been around the block for quite some time now, so he’s another we’ll look to fill the void.”

The Pride have brought in five transfer players, and Claxton has high hopes that they will make a big impact on the team. One of those players is Jarrod Simmons, a graduate student who came from the University of Pennsylvania. Simmons did not play last year, as all Ivy League sports were cancelled for the 2020-21 school year.

“[Simmons brings] leadership, I.Q., he’s going to be that locker room voice that we need,” Claxton said. “He’s an older experienced guy who’s been in college basketball for quite some time, so I think the biggest thing from him that we expect is leadership.”

Claxton also brought in another guard, Zach Cooks, from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). He scored 324 points in 19 games last season at NJIT, averaging 17.1 per game.

“[Zach Cooks] is a humble guard. He’s a lightning-quick scorer,” Claxton said. “[He’s] really good defender when he wants to be, but at the end of the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on one of those all-conference teams.”

The team also saw the addition of Darlinstone Dubar, a guard that joins the team after playing at Iowa State University last year.

“[Dubar’s] good, we expect good things from him,” Claxton said. “He’s been a work in progress. He’s one guy that has gotten better every week that he’s been here so far. We expect big things from him. He’s going to really, really improve as time goes on.”

The Pride was also able to pick out Aaron Estrada, a guard that comes to Hofstra from the University of Oregon. Estrada has played for Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, New Jersey.

“He’s a scoring wing, and similar to [Cooks], I could definitely see him being an all-conference player at the end of the year,” Claxton said. “We’re going to really look to him to provide some scoring for us, along with [Ray] and [Cooks].”

The new face list wouldn’t be complete with Abayomi Iyiola. The redshirt senior forward comes to the Pride from the University of Arkansas, with a prior stint at Stetson University in Florida.

“[Iyiola] is going to bring toughness, inside stuff that we desperately need,” Claxton said. “[We need to build] chemistry, we need to find chemistry and we need to buy in on the defensive end, and these kids have so far. They’ve just got to keep believing in the stuff that we’ve been doing in the preseason, even though these first four games are going to be hard, and it might not show up in those games. We’ve just got to keep believing and keep our confidence, and after those couple of games it will start to show up.”

One final factor that might help out this team a lot is the return of fans back to the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex. There will be people in the stands for the first time since Feb. 29, 2020.

“It was kind of weird, last year, playing without fans,” Claxton said. “When a guy hit a big shot, there was no crowd reaction. It was like playing scrimmages all year. I was kind of happy when the season was over, because that’s just not a way to play.”

“[Having fans back] is a huge impact,” Claxton added. “Players feed off the crowd. When we make a couple shots, you get the crowd going. You might hit that next shot, and the crowd will go crazy, and the other team will call a timeout. Hopefully the fans will bring that excitement back into the building this year.”

With a new coaching staff, many new faces on the roster and with a whole season ahead of them, the Pride is focused on recl
aiming the CAA championship and getting back into the NCAA tournament.

Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics