The university had been promoting the game for weeks. With mass e-mails sent to the entire campus, posts on social media and signs out on Hempstead Turnpike, there wasn’t a person on Long Island who wasn’t aware of the Winter Homecoming game between the Hofstra men’s basketball team and James Madison University (JMU) on Saturday, Feb. 5. The hype was palpable, with the student section inside the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex as raucous as ever. And yet, to no fault of their own, the school’s marketing department undersold the event as the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) rivals went buzzer to buzzer in an overtime thriller that saw the Pride pull out an 85-78 win on the back of a career-high 35 points from Aaron Estrada. 

“Unbelievable win,” said Hofstra head coach Speedy Claxton. “We could’ve folded when they took us to overtime, but we didn’t. We held our composure, and Aaron Estrada took us home. The kid had 35 points. It was an unbelievable performance by him.”

The game began with both sides trading punches as neither team missed a field goal attempt in the opening minutes of the contest. While JMU slashed their way to the rim off of designed plays, Hofstra settled in from behind the arc as Estrada and Darlinstone Dubar hit a pair of threes. The score remained close until midway through the first half when Hofstra went on an 11-0 run, pulling ahead to a 23-13 lead. However, the luck that Hofstra had previously found from deep quickly turned into a crutch. The Pride failed to hit their final seven three-point attempts to end the half and held a thin 31-30 lead heading into the locker room.

JMU opened the second half making their strongest push of the day, with Charles Falden hitting a layup before draining a three on the following possession to give the Dukes their first lead since the opening tip, 37-35. That advantage didn’t hold for long though, as an 11-3 Hofstra run was capped off by a fast-break layup scored by Zach Cooks to put the Pride back up by 10 points with just over 11 minutes left to play. Still working his way back from an injury, Cooks provided 16 points and some key baskets throughout the game during his 30 minutes off the bench.

“That was huge,” Claxton said. “We needed a secondary scorer and Zach [Cooks] provided that for us today. We missed him and we missed his points. For him to have a game like he did today was needed. If we didn’t get those points, we probably lose.”

Just like in the first half, as time wore down so did Hofstra’s lead. Falden and Vado Morse combined for 14 points in the last 10 minutes of regulation, including a layup that Morse hit in the final seconds while fighting through two Hofstra defenders, tying the game at 71. It was the second time that Hofstra had relinquished a 10-point lead in the contest. All game JMU played through their two guards with each scoring more than 20 points in the contest.

“We saw them put it past us, but we had to move forward,” Claxton said. “We still had to protect our home court with our fans behind us and go out and win the game.”

In overtime, Hofstra’s defense clamped down and left the scoring duties to Estrada, who scored nine of the Pride’s 14 points in the extra period.

“I feel like when you’ve got the crowd behind you and you’ve got people actually supporting you, that just gives you more confidence and ultimately makes you play harder,” Estrada said. “Personally, I feel like it does that for the whole team too. We’re getting stops. Everybody is into it, and that gives us a big boost.”

Hofstra will look to ride the momentum from their victory over JMU into their next game, a rematch at home against the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) leaders UNC-Wilmington on Monday, Feb. 6 at 5 p.m. UNCW previously took down the Pride 78-72 on Jan. 29.

The Hofstra marketing department may need to raise their budget for that game as Pride fans began to label Estrada as the team’s “MVP” following his career performance.

“I didn’t hear those chants because I was pretty locked into the game,” Estrada said.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Claxton said. “I didn’t even get any MVP chants when I played.”

Photo courtesy of Evan Bernstein/The Hofstra Chronicle