Men's basketball overwhelms Bucknell, earns fourth-straight win

The Hofstra men’s basketball team took down Bucknell University 88-69 at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex on Saturday, Dec. 4. It was the program’s first win over Bucknell since its 1997-98 season opener when now-head coach Speedy Claxton led the way with 20 points. This game had Aaron Estrada pacing the Pride with 24 following up a 20-point performance against Princeton on Wednesday, Dec. 1.

“[Estrada] was fantastic,” Claxton said. “I did want to see him have a breakout game and now he’s had two, hopefully he can continue this trend.”

The first half was one of runs and it began with Hofstra scoring the game’s first eight points. Bucknell answered with 10 straight points of its own, capped off by seven-foot-tall Andre Screen’s dunk.

“We stopped driving the basketball and we were settling for jumpers and settling for the shots they wanted us to take and not the shots we wanted to take,” Claxton said. “Once we got back to doing what we do, it was a wrap after that.”

The Bison continued the run which was capped at 25-9 over a span of 7:52 and resulted in their largest lead of the afternoon, 27-17. From there, Hofstra embarked on a run of its own. Abayomi Iyiola scored eight of the game’s next 11 points to get it started. Those were the only four shots he took all game to go along with six rebounds, four of which came from the offensive glass.

“[Iyiola] was huge,” Claxton said. “He came in when our energy was lacking and that’s what he brings to the table. Once he got into the game, he changed the ballgame completely.”

In his 18 minutes, Iyiola also opened opportunities for some of Hofstra’s prominent scorers like Zach Cooks, who finished second on the Pride with 19 points in the contest.

“I’ve known [Iyiola] for many years now, even before we even got up here,” Cooks said. “He just wants to come in, set screens and roll. You tell him ‘You just screen’ and then come off it and score and he gets rebounds.”

The Pride finished the run scoring 11 of the first half’s final 12 points capped by Omar Silverio’s corner three that got the student section going. It was Silverio’s second three-pointer in a row after starting the game 0-3 from deep. He finished 4-9 from beyond the arc in the game. Hofstra took a 39-33 lead into the locker room at halftime.

The Pride pulled away in the second half thanks to a couple more runs. The largest was a 12-0 run that started just past the halfway point of the second that pushed the lead to 77-57, which was Hofstra’s largest of the game. Jalen Ray picked up six of his 12 points during the run. 

From there, the Pride closed things out with relative ease, much to the delight of the student section who went crazy after a highlight-reel alley-oop from Estrada to Darlinstone Dubar.

With the win, the Pride completes its first homestand of the season at a perfect 4-0 to move above .500 for the first time this year.

“Whenever you play in front of your home fans, it’s going to boost you up,” Claxton said. “Our fans have been great thus far and hopefully, that continues.”

A big part of the recent success stems from the defense which gave up 69.75 points per game during the homestand.

“I’m not worried about offense,” Claxton said. “[On] offense, we’re going to be fine, we have weapons, but if we buy in on the defensive end, we have a really, really special team and, to these kids’ credit, I think they’re finally starting to see that.”

The Pride will look to extend its winning streak to five on Wednesday, Dec. 8, at Stony Brook University for the Battle of Long Island. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics