A late rally from the Hofstra University men’s basketball team fell short for the second straight game, as the Pride concluded a winless road trip with a 69-68 defeat at the hands of the Campbell University Fighting Camels on Saturday, Jan. 13. The loss dropped Hofstra to 1-3 in Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) play, as the Pride have already guaranteed themselves a worse conference record than last season’s 16-2 mark.
Hofstra, once again, succumbed to a slow start, falling behind by 15 points late in the first half. Sluggish openings have become commonplace throughout Hofstra’s rough start to league play, as the Pride have found themselves down 16-4 to the College of Charleston, 42-21 to Northeastern University and 35-20 to Campbell within the first half of each game.
Following the early deficit, Hofstra began to roar back with an 8-0 run to conclude the first half before opening the second stanza on a 6-2 scoring run. The Pride battled back to take a 68-63 lead with 3:58 remaining but missed their final eight shot attempts and were held scoreless for the rest of the contest.
Hofstra fell ice cold from 3-point range, going 8-26 from beyond the arc in the loss. Despite another poor shooting afternoon, 21 points and four offensive rebounds from Darlinstone Dubar allowed the Pride to stay in the game. Dubar was by far Hofstra’s most efficient scorer, shooting 8-14 from the field and 2-3 from the 3-point line in 35 minutes of action.
The Hofstra defense came to play, holding the Campbell offense to their second-lowest scoring total in conference play and limiting the Camels to a 28.2% mark from 3-point range. Hofstra was previously 30-5 under head coach Speedy Claxton when allowing fewer than 70 points, with Saturday’s loss being their first since a 68-47 defeat to Towson University on Jan. 11, 2023.
Despite their offensive struggles, Hofstra had a pair of opportunities to win the game in the final seconds with the Pride only being down by a point. Jacco Fritz corralled the offensive rebound on a missed go-ahead 3-pointer from Tyler Thomas with 3.6 seconds left before Jaquan Carlos finished a season-worst 1-12 afternoon by missing a potential game-winner from the elbow.
There was no public media availability from Claxton following the game.
The Pride will have the opportunity to right the ship against the winless Hampton University Pirates on Thursday, Jan. 18, at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex. The Pirates have lost seven consecutive games and rank last among CAA teams in total offense.
Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics/Evan Bernstein
