Game 16 vs. JMU

[HUSID80]

Ok guys we need this one before a tough upcoming road trip. The Dukes are a surprising 2-0 in CAA play after a horrid 1-11 non-conf record. They should come into the Mack pretty confident although I have seen us listed as 8 point favs...Who's going? Surprisingly good and lively crowd for the W-M game, hope we can keep it up!

[Wags]

Surprisingly good and lively crowd for the W-M game, hope we can keep it up!

Problem is, much of that came from the visiting crowd again! Only 1,702 in attendance for that game, although that's with a severely reduced Lion's Den until students are back from break toward the end of this month.

Three-game trip ending in Wilmington, having already let the W&M game get away, this is a MUST win! They need to bring the energy from the opening tip and sustain it for as long as it takes to put this one away. Cannot go on this season-long road trip trip after two straight home CAA losses.

[HUSID80]

Wags, yes there are a nice group of WM fans but there was also a large number of animated Hofstra fans on the same side of the arena. When was the last time we heard chants of DEFENSE from the Hofstra faithful...And agreed, this is a MUST win!

[Polito]

Let's GOOOOOO fellas

Great opp to get back in the win column heading into the upcoming road battles.

No issue whatsoever with the W&M game crowd. 1700 for a Jan game with little to no promo and 0 students on campus is a positive at this stage in the attendance correction game. HU finally has someone effective leading the change, it will take time - thought the HU contingent was as HUSID mentioned, lively - and that is a start!

Up to us folks to lead the charge in the stands - fellas need our help to get back on track, let's make JMU uncomfortable tonight

I'm feeling a WHITE and BLUE color scheme for the arena! Break out your HU gear and let's rep PRIDE NATION - LOUD and PROUD folks!

[HofstraMathew]

Wags, yes there are a nice group of WM fans but there was also a large number of animated Hofstra fans on the same side of the arena. When was the last time we heard chants of DEFENSE from the Hofstra faithful...And agreed, this is a MUST win!

I agree. I sit behind the scorers table and it definitely was one of the louder home crowds in a while. Plenty of room for improvement but it was a start. I will be there tonight and hopefully plenty to cheer for.

[Jordan]

Agreed Polito! I brought along a couple of friends and warned them "It's a Monday game at 4, not sure how the crowd is going to be..." Once the game started one of my friends looked over at me and said "What are you talking about? This looks like a pretty good crowd to me!" And I also agree with that. Gives me a lot of courage for a Saturday night game with a few more wins under our belt!

Also, thoroughly enjoyed the animation from the crowd! Anytime a chant was started, many joined along and it got loud! Love it! Would also love to encourage some energy before the players start heating up. WE have the ability to heat them up! But, of course that will come with some time.

Tonight's game won't be a walk in the park. JMU is 2-0 and beat Towson handily. Though if they play the way they have recently, I really believe we have the ability to beat anybody. I look back at past years and DEPTH was never a factor for us. Seemingly irrelevant. This year we HAVE depth, and our bench is just as good as the starters. Any group out there has the ability to be the starting group. There is not one player that I feel uncomfortable with the ball and that is HUGE. It's nice having a Juan'ya and Jenkins, but I almost feel more confident having a team full of JWF and Powers with Rokas and Sabety underneath.

Couple of individual keys:
- Sabety has got to stop jumping every few seconds. Sure he gets a lot of blocks from it, but allows way too many guards to sneak on by to the hoop.
- Powers needs to learn to share the ball a bit. He is a great play maker, but as we noticed last game he attempted it every play. We have a team in which we actually don't need to rely on one guy. That's our biggest strength actually.
- Unfortunately, Bernardi can't shoot out of a slump. I almost feel he needs to do the opposite. If he misses, he needs to take a break and try later. Otherwise his shot goes from being the "Staten Island Sniper" to hitting the side of the backboard and air balls.
- The defense has gotten better! Of course not great figuring we let up 90+ points, but I am noticing some more energy. Lots more tipped balls and less fouls too

Tonight's game is an important one! 2-1 is a confidence booster. 1-2 is EXTREMELY demoralizing, especially for the players. And we have 3 away games in a row, so an exciting win at home after a heartbreaking loss is a necessity! See you all at the game. Go pride!

[EvanJ]

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=148154 will have statistics.

[ProudofPride]

Just over 5 minutes to go in the first half, we still haven't shown up.

Update: Just as I said that, Hofstra started a nice 9-0, which resulted in a 33-33 tie at the half. Elsewhere around the CAA, Northeastern leads Delaware 58-18 at the half. That is not a typo.

[ProudofPride]

9:55 left in the second half, and I can't figure out why the team seems content to be performing this badly against a team with 4 wins total, 3 against division 1. In the second half, we're playing 0 defense (JMU is 7-8 from the field), almost no offense, and we're pretty horrible at rebounding as well, second half alone JMU has 9 compared to our 3.
I lost track of the amount of times our big men have been left alone wide open and we completely ignore them and settle for an ill-contested 3 instead. No one seems to care to try to change anything. This is painful to watch, there have been several times throughout the game where this team doesn't look fundamentally sound.

[DCDUTCH]

BB is becoming a liability.

[ProudofPride]

This was a very important game, seeing how the team would bounce back after Monday's heartbreaker and the game before the toughest road stretch of the season. We're in danger of being 1-2 in conference, and now have to face Charleston, Elon, and UNCW on the road, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we lose all 3 at this point, with the way the team looks tonight. Not good.

JMU now has their biggest lead of the night, 61-49 with less than 3 and a half minutes left. We haven't scored in over 5 minutes, and JAM looks completely clueless on the sideline.

[Hofstra]

Just a pathetic performance overall. Team looked disinterested. Coach made no changes during the game. Crowd was spotty as well.

Announcers were spot on for this game, bashed our effort.. Terrible.

As I typed this out, we missed 14 three pointers with 25 seconds plus on the shot clock

[Wags]

Justin Wright-Foreman the only one who showed up. Followed up his career-high 30 pts last time out with 25 pts on 8/17. Rest of Hofstra: 29 on 9/32.

After JWF, no one else with more than 7 pts.

[joeg1]

Why did jwf only enter about 8 minutes into the game? Coach has some explainin' to do. I pin this loss on the staff for being totally unprepared

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[Pride97]

I think you have to pin it on the players as well. They looked flat and uninterested. JWF was the only one to came to play. There were no plays being run, no hustle and no execution. They should be embarrassed with how they performed tonight. JMU let them stay in the game - a good team would have easily won by 30


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[ZMAN3]

Disgraceful effort - Bernardi horrendous - as was Gustys. Got to scrap the F'n ZONE!! We gave up 14 layups to their bigs - and I'm sure some others. The guys are lost - scrambling around like a chicken with his head chopped off. JM didn't come out of the 2-3 until less than 4 minutes - except out of TO's when they use 1-3-1 trap (although they never trap anyone). I was talking to my friends about the zone we were using when a stranger in front of me who overheard said "what zone" ? Definition of insanity...
PS-The way we shot weren't going to win anyway but we gave up 52% shooting - brutal

[HUSID80]

Come on guys we live and die with the three. Tonight we didn't hit them. Six for 24. We looked like s....t. This is what we are... disappointing, yes but we played a team that game planned us very well... they did exactly what our assist coach said they would try and do against us in the pre game talk.... pound the ball inside, press us to take the ball out of Powers hand and make us beat them with the three... which we were unable to do... Game set match.

[Dooku25]

I couldn't attend this game and wow what a game I missed. I watched about half the game on the internet and this is what I think. Alot of guys are underperforming right now. The top 3 are Bernardi, Gustys and Pemberton.

Bernardi- I think it is time to start JWF and have BB come off the bench. BB is now driving way too much to the basket and it's either ending in a turnover or missed shot. I don't mind him driving once or twice to keep the defense honest, but it seems he has been doing this more and more and it has not worked out most times. Meanwhile, JWF is fast becoming our top offensive weapon. He needs to be out there for 30+ minutes.

Gustys- He's been trending downward for awhile now. As previous posters have mentioned, if he is not being setup by a PG, he isn't scoring. He had 1 point in Delaware and got into foul trouble, 5 points tonight. When he isn't in foul trouble, it's because he playing no defense. He has been losing his aggressiveness for whatever reason.

Pemberton- He will get a pass because he is only a freshman, but if you remember how he started the season, you'd have to say his performances lately has diminished. He goes long stretches on the court where he is a complete non factor. He seems to have lost some of his aggressiveness as well. Again, I can live with the up and down play because he is a freshman and it is to be expected. He has already displayed tremendous ability so I can be patient with him.

Other guys aren't as consistent game in game out such as Greer, Robinson and Powers.

Tonight looked to be a very disappointing effort in front of small crowd which is typical for early January at Hofstra.

Guys need to step up. It's not going to get any easier as the next game is on the road against the conference's best defensive team.

[Wags]

Come on guys we live and die with the three. Tonight we didn't hit them. Six for 24. We looked like s....t. This is what we are... disappointing, yes but we played a team that game planned us very well... they did exactly what our assist coach said they would try and do against us in the pre game talk.... pound the ball inside, press us to take the ball out of Powers hand and make us beat them with the three... which we were unable to do... Game set match.

First of all, good to meet you at the game tonight! Always good to keep putting more faces to the names here on this board.

Second, yeah the 3s didn't fall. JWF was 4/9 from there, but everyone else 2/15. But it was more than that. Way too careless with the ball. A couple of terrible passes that led to completely uncontested transition buckets the other way for JMU. A few other times when they lost the ball on drives out of their hands without the ball getting touched, or they dribbled it off their feet out of bounds, or a short lob pass in the paint sailed over someone's head and out of bounds. Just an overall lack of focus. That's what Mihalich means when he says "toughness on offense," not just on defense, in the way people normally think of toughness. Basically, JWF showed up for what should have been a must win, and no one else did, which is disturbing considering how seemingly important this game was.

And I don't want to single out Bernardi, because not only is he a really nice kid, and because it was everyone playing poorly outside of JWF, but Bernardi can't be out there for 32 minutes to make just one shot and get only one rebound, just one assist and no steals, while being a defensive liability most of the time. It's long overdue to move him to the bench, give him 18-20 minutes, and let him be a spark that comes in to hit a few 3s to highlight a run at a couple of key points during the game. And let that be his role until he earns 30+ minutes again with some other contributions (if that would ever happen).

Also: check out the play here at :11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekquevp ... e=youtu.be
That's exactly the type of thing that's been missing this year, which Green helped Rok do. No one expects anyone on this team to be Green, but this play shows it CAN be done with the guards they have, but the guards rarely look to set Rok up in this way. Those types of plays should be happening multiple times a game with Rok until teams are able to stop it. But Hofstra rarely tries it. I was surprised to even see it on that early dunk tonight.

[Jojogunne]

I couldn't attend this game and wow what a game I missed. I watched about half the game on the internet and this is what I think. Alot of guys are underperforming right now. The top 3 are Bernardi, Gustys and Pemberton.

Bernardi- I think it is time to start JWF and have BB come off the bench. BB is now driving way too much to the basket and it's either ending in a turnover or missed shot. I don't mind him driving once or twice to keep the defense honest, but it seems he has been doing this more and more and it has not worked out most times. Meanwhile, JWF is fast becoming our top offensive weapon. He needs to be out there for 30+ minutes.

Gustys- He's been trending downward for awhile now. As previous posters have mentioned, if he is not being setup by a PG, he isn't scoring. He had 1 point in Delaware and got into foul trouble, 5 points tonight. When he isn't in foul trouble, it's because he playing no defense. He has been losing his aggressiveness for whatever reason.

Pemberton- He will get a pass because he is only a freshman, but if you remember how he started the season, you'd have to say his performances lately has diminished. He goes long stretches on the court where he is a complete non factor. He seems to have lost some of his aggressiveness as well. Again, I can live with the up and down play because he is a freshman and it is to be expected. He has already displayed tremendous ability so I can be patient with him.

Other guys aren't as consistent game in game out such as Greer, Robinson and Powers.

Tonight looked to be a very disappointing effort in front of small crowd which is typical for early January at Hofstra.

Guys need to step up. It's not going to get any easier as the next game is on the road against the conference's best defensive team.

My sentiments exactly. I hate to be negative, but this team is regressing. We should be getting better.