The Hofstra men’s basketball team kicked off Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play with a 61-56 home win against the College of William & Mary on Saturday, Jan. 2. Junior Isaac Kante led the way for the Pride with 15 points on 6-12 shooting and 14 rebounds.
“It’s a good win. Every win is a good win, especially conference wins,” said Hofstra acting head coach Mike Farrelly. “It’s obviously great to get a win when you don’t make shots. Our calling card has been we’re a really high-level offensive team and when we make shots we’re really good and hard to beat. But when you go 2-18 from three and 11-19 from the foul line it’s a little hard to win. But our defense was really really good and what it needed it to be, and that’s what really carried us.”
Hofstra jumped out to a big lead five minutes into the first half by using a 13-0 scoring run to go ahead 15-5. From there the Pride continued to maintain a large advantage and extended it to 14 points after Kvonn Cramer’s layup with 3:26 remaining in the half. After a three pointer by Tareq Coburn with 41 seconds remaining, Hofstra took a 34-24 lead into the break.
After controlling much of the first half, the Pride picked up where they left off on their first three possessions of the second stanza as Kante, Coburn and David Green all scored to stay up by 12 points.
However, William & Mary began to climb out of their hole with a 6-0 run to cut the deficit to only six points. Luke Loewe, who scored five of the Tribe’s six points on that run, continued to lead their push as he drained another three to get within four with 10:42 remaining in the game.
The Pride responded with points on three consecutive possessions to go back up by double digits, but the relentless Tribe fought back again and got within three points quickly after.
Hofstra looked like they were about to ice the game after Kante’s free throw with under five minutes remaining put them ahead 11 points, but just like they did twice already in the half, William & Mary clawed their way back to cut their deficit to a mere three points with 55 seconds left.
Hofstra was able to survive the late push even despite missing several free throws in the final seconds and earned their first CAA win of the season. The Pride struggled with three pointers and free throws the entire afternoon, but were strong defensively and on the boards to improve to 5-3 on the season.
To go along with Kante’s 15 points, Coburn also reached double digits in scoring with 13 and Caleb Burgess tallied nine points with seven assists.
“It’s 1-0, however you get it, so be excited,” Farrelly said. “You only get so many opportunities to do this and to get to 1-0 in conference, whether it’s ugly, pretty, with a million points or just with 61 points, that doesn’t matter, 1-0 is what matters at the end of the day.”
“I work a lot on the defensive acre on this team,” Kante said. “Last year I was getting into a lot of foul trouble, but this year we have focused on how to not get a lot of fouls but also alter shots, block them if I can and I think I have been pretty good with that this year.”
Hofstra will continue their CAA play with another home matchup against William & Mary on Sunday, Jan. 3 at 2 pm.
Photo Courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
