The Hofstra men’s basketball team extended their season-long win streak to seven games on Thursday, Feb. 20, when they defeated Drexel University 81-74 at Daskalakis Athletic Center.
Senior Desure Buie recorded a game-high 26 points for the Pride and helped the team improve their record to 21-7 overall and 12-3 in Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play. The loss was Drexel’s seventh in their last eight games and dropped their record to 13-15 overall and 6-9 in conference matchups.
“I’m really proud of our guys tonight, but it wasn’t pretty,” said Hofstra head coach Joe Mihalich. “You’ve got to give Drexel a lot of credit there because I thought they played well and they had a good game plan.”
Hofstra jumped out to an early lead, but Drexel kept it close and used an 8-0 scoring run to go in front 15-11 with 13 minutes remaining in the first half. The Pride responded and scored the next nine points to build a five-point lead with just over ten minutes remaining.
Hofstra led the Dragons 24-19 with seven minutes to go in the half, but Drexel continued to play tough as senior guard Zach Walton led them on a 10-2 run and the home team jumped ahead 29-26.
Walton stayed hot and closed out the first half with a layup for his team-high 14th point that put Drexel up by one at 35-34 going into the break.
The first half was back-and-forth the entire way and saw eight lead changes over the first 20 minutes.
“I knew right from the get-go that it was going to be a back-and-forth affair tonight,” Mihalich said. “[Drexel] made shots when they had to and played tough throughout so give them some credit.”
Drexel maintained a tight lead through the first three minutes of the second half, but Buie’s jumper with 17:32 remaining put the Pride back in front 42-41. Buie and sophomore Isaac Kante took over for Hofstra and helped hold back Drexel’s strong, late push.
Drexel guard Camren Wynter also caught fire in the second stanza and drained a three to tie the score at 54 at the 11:35 mark. Hofstra responded with the next possession, however, as Jalen Ray knocked down a triple and put the Pride back up by three.
With under five minutes remaining, Walton struck again and gave Drexel a brief 67-65 lead with a layup as he got around Kante driving to the basket. Just 20 seconds later, Eli Pemberton knocked down a mid-range jumper that put Hofstra back in the lead for good.
The Pride closed out the game by hitting all of their free throws in the last five minutes of play, sealing the 81-74 win.
To go along with Buie’s 26 points, Kante recorded his second consecutive 20-point game (8-8 from the line), while Pemberton recorded 19.
“When [Buie] is on the floor, whoever he’s playing for is going to have a heck of a chance to win the game,” Mihalich said. “In practice we always split the team. We don’t play starters versus the second team, we split them up evenly and whichever team Buie’s on seems to win every time.”
Hofstra will look to extend their win streak to eight games on Saturday, Feb. 22, when they play another big conference game against the University of Delaware at 4 p.m.
