MBB Game 25 - Elon - 2/7/15, 7 PM

[Jojogunne]

Saturday night home game vs. 9-12 Elon. Another win for us?

[stuball888]

Should be we match up well against them. Must keep close to their 3 point shooters.

[joeg1]

It's all in front of us. Win key games at home and we are in the hunt. Time to turn it on

[Wags]

It's all in front of us. Win key games at home and we are in the hunt. Time to turn it on

And on that note...

Previously alone in first place at 8-2, William & Mary lost at last-place Charleston last night, giving up 80 pts (on 55% shooting), including 45 pts in the second half (so not just HU, but even what was the top team in the league had issues defensively in a game it should have won). Charleston was previously just 1-9 in the CAA.

Helps HU's hopes a lot for a regular season CAA title, as a W&M win would have created a 3-game gap on HU heading into tomorrow's games. Instead, HU is only two games out of first, with W&M, Northeastern and UNCW all tied at 8-3. If HU takes care of business at home against Elon, they'll gain a game on either W&M or UNCW, who play each other in Wilmington tomorrow night.

Looking ahead, HU is done with UNCW, and has one game left against W&M and NU each, with each of those at home... 4-2 on the road is fine, but that 2-3 at home -- time to start defending the home floor the rest of the way, beginning tomorrow night. Do that, and everything might fall into place nicely before Baltimore.

[stuball888]

To quote dan Devine in the movie "Rudy" "No one comes into our place and pushes us around".

[ZMAN3]

Would you believe 11' again ?

[cactus]

Let's gooooooo

[EvanJ]

I was out of the house so I didn't post the lineups. Hofstra leads 39-37 at halftime. Many of the statistics are close, but bench points is an exception. Hofstra has more bench points, 18 to 4. Nesmsith has 12 to lead all scorers and Gustys has 6 points. Green and Tanksley have 8 points each. Green has 4 assists. Bernardi and Nichols haven't scored. Austin Hamilton has 11 points. Nesmith and Hamilton are the only double-digit scorers so far.

Edit: The largest lead of the half was 6. Elon led 13-7 and Hofstra led 29-23. The game was tied for long enough that neither team led for a majority of the time. Elon led for longer than Hofstra.

[Wags]

I mentioned the W&M @ UNCW game above (so someone there will lose), but Northeastern also lost at home to Delaware today.

Golden opportunity for the Dutch. Must win tonight.

[EvanJ]

Hofstra went up 8, Elon went up 58-57, and now Hofstra has their largest lead at 74-63.

Edit: Nesmith leads all scorers with 22. Tanksley and Hamilton have 18 each. Green has a double-double with 11 points and 10 assists. Kone has a chance at a double-double with 10 points and 8 rebounds. There's 3:52 left.

[EvanJ]

Would you believe 11' again ?

That was the final margin. Hofstra won 80-69.

Edit: Nesmith led all scorers with 22 and Hamilton led Elon with 21. Tanksley had 18 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 5 steals. Green made only 3 out of 10 field goals and had 15 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds. Kone had 10 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocked shots. Gustys and Bernardi scored 6 and Robinson scored 3. Bernardi made only 1 out of 9 field goals. Nichols attempted 3 field goals and 4 free throws without scoring. Hofstra had 11 steals and has had at least 11 steals in three of the last six games.

Edit: Hofstra committed 6 fouls in the first 6:12 of the second half and then committed their next foul 6:19 later with 7:29 left.

[Cards]

Based on first half play, the game could have gone either way. HU did not play good defense. HU picked it up in the second half - better "D" and energy in the game. Stars of the game were Kone and Nesmith. Green and Bernardi both shot very poorly. Great to see Kone with heart and spring in the legs. Granted, elon does not have a true big man for Kone to play against, but Kone played well nonetheless.

This is a game we needed to win, should have won, and did.

[EvanJ]

http://espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=400597895 is the Associated Press recap titled "Hofstra runs past Elon, 80-69." http://www.gohofstra.com/news/2015/2/7/ ... 52636.aspx is Hofstra's recap. http://www.gohofstra.com/boxscore.aspx? ... ll&id=6429 is the box score. The attendance was 2,017, which raises our average to 1,775.

[Dooku25]

Order is being restored with this team. Thats 2 games in a row holding our opponents to 69 points. Last night the effort on defense was evident. We still had some defensive lapses, but this team will never be great defensively. To win the CAA, they just need to give great effort on D and last night they did. Elon had 18 turnovers and we took at least 3 charges in the first half. Nobody was in foul trouble either which is rare for us.

Nesmith and Kone played great. The team as a whole drove to the basket and got the ball down low more often than usual. Not too many bad shots were taken last night and their body language was much better.

W&M and Northeastern both suffered bad losses this week, and we got both of them at our place in the next 2 weeks. This league is as wide open as ever. We can turn this thing around, gotta keep the faith.

[Polito]

Though they haven't played great per say, they have finally made some good adjustments (both players and staff) which has resulted in getting back to the win column

I think its clear at this point that Green simply doesn't shoot well, very low %, but he does so many other things well that you can live and win with it IF he focuses on his strengths - and that's exactly what he did against Elon

When he drives and dishes this team can be dangerous - when he tries to do too much, they suffer - I admit I wanted to see him do/score more, but I realize now that's not when he or HU is at their best

Not the only factor for this team of course but its a big one - please stick with that Green, and you can be the catalyst to make this a memorable season

#ROLLPRIDE