MBB Game 30 Thu, Feb 27 @Stony Brook 7 PM

[Jojogunne]

On Thursday (2/27) we try to regain some respect at Stony Brook (6-21, 2-12). The only CAA teams SBU has beaten are North Carolina A&T (our final opponent) and us.

The snowstorm that passed us by was not so kind to Virginia. Hampton had to move SBU's game on Thursday (2/20) to Monday (2/24), which means the Seawolves will have to travel (swim?) home late Monday/early Tuesday. Two days later they host us.

SNY (SBU's cable channel) and FloCollege will carry the game.

[Jojogunne]

SBU lost a heartbreaker to NC A&T on Saturday, 73-72, on a foul with 0:06 second left. The Seawolves are now 6-22 and 2-13.

[Jojogunne]

Hampton crushed SBU tonight, 81-49.

[Wags]

Hampton crushed SBU tonight, 81-49.

That takes Hampton out of the picture for Hofstra to catch but Northeastern lost at Monmouth tonight so they drop to 7-9.

Haven't looked at the secondary tiebreakers (since Hofstra and Northeastern split) but if Northeastern loses out (vs. NC A&T and at William & Mary) and if Hofstra wins out (vs. NC A&T after this game), Hofstra and Northeastern would both be 7-11. That would be the last team left that Hofstra could tie to maybe get to the 10 seed and avoid playing on Friday in DC. They could also tie Drexel (currently 7-9), but they played Hofstra once and won so Hofstra can't pass the Dragons.

Monmouth, which was 2-11 OOC, now controls its own destiny for at least the 6 seed and a winning conference record (currently 9-7).

Towson has already clinched the top seed at 14-2 with two games left.

[EvanJ]

Hampton crushed SBU tonight, 81-49.

That takes Hampton out of the picture for Hofstra to catch but Northeastern lost at Monmouth tonight so they drop to 7-9.

Haven't looked at the secondary tiebreakers (since Hofstra and Northeastern split) but if Northeastern loses out (vs. NC A&T and at William & Mary) and if Hofstra wins out (vs. NC A&T after this game), Hofstra and Northeastern would both be 7-11. That would be the last team left that Hofstra could tie to maybe get to the 10 seed and avoid playing on Friday in DC. They could also tie Drexel (currently 7-9), but they played Hofstra once and won so Hofstra can't pass the Dragons.

Monmouth, which was 2-11 OOC, now controls its own destiny for at least the 6 seed and a winning conference record (currently 9-7).

Towson has already clinched the top seed at 14-2 with two games left.

All three of today's games helped our small chance at avoiding the First Round. Hampton defeated Stony Brook, Monmouth defeated Northeastern, and UNCW defeated W&M. The reason a Hampton win was good for us is that we lose a tiebreaker to Hampton and/or Drexel, and our rank in a three-way or four-way tie would not let us avoid the First Round. We need Hampton and Drexel to finish above Northeastern and us. With Hampton's win, they clinched that. We need Drexel to win at least one out of two. In order for our best win to be better than Northeastern's best win, we need UNCW to finish above Campbell. When one pair of teams has their tiebreaker be their record against another pair (or more) of tied teams, the former is judged by their rank against the latter group. In other words, tiebreakers are simultaneous so that nobody is helped or hurt by a tiebreaker between other teams. We want UNCW to win at Campbell on Thursday. If Campbell wins, we need a UNCW win and a Campbell loss on Saturday. They play after us. It is hypothetically possible for games at 2:00 P.M., 4:00 P.M., 6:00 P.M., and 7:00 P.M. on Saturday to affect us. The start times of games that could let us clinch avoiding the bottom four are us at 4:00 P.M. and Delaware at UNCW at 7:00 P.M. Campbell ends at Charleston, and UNCW ends hosting Delaware, so having both of those go right on Saturday would not be surprising. If four games go right for us on Thursday, the only things we will need on Saturday are a win and a Northeastern loss at W&M, which ends when our game starts, so we will know at tipoff or a few minutes in if we have a chance at avoiding the First Round.

[Wags]

Hampton crushed SBU tonight, 81-49.

That takes Hampton out of the picture for Hofstra to catch but Northeastern lost at Monmouth tonight so they drop to 7-9.

Haven't looked at the secondary tiebreakers (since Hofstra and Northeastern split) but if Northeastern loses out (vs. NC A&T and at William & Mary) and if Hofstra wins out (vs. NC A&T after this game), Hofstra and Northeastern would both be 7-11. That would be the last team left that Hofstra could tie to maybe get to the 10 seed and avoid playing on Friday in DC. They could also tie Drexel (currently 7-9), but they played Hofstra once and won so Hofstra can't pass the Dragons.

Monmouth, which was 2-11 OOC, now controls its own destiny for at least the 6 seed and a winning conference record (currently 9-7).

Towson has already clinched the top seed at 14-2 with two games left.

All three of today's games helped our small chance at avoiding the First Round. Hampton defeated Stony Brook, Monmouth defeated Northeastern, and UNCW defeated W&M. The reason a Hampton win was good for us is that we lose a tiebreaker to Hampton and/or Drexel, and our rank in a three-way or four-way tie would not let us avoid the First Round. We need Hampton and Drexel to finish above Northeastern and us. With Hampton's win, they clinched that. We need Drexel to win at least one out of two. In order for our best win to be better than Northeastern's best win, we need UNCW to finish above Campbell. When one pair of teams has their tiebreaker be their record against another pair (or more) of tied teams, the former is judged by their rank against the latter group. In other words, tiebreakers are simultaneous so that nobody is helped or hurt by a tiebreaker between other teams. We want UNCW to win at Campbell on Thursday. If Campbell wins, we need a UNCW win and a Campbell loss on Saturday. They play after us. It is hypothetically possible for games at 2:00 P.M., 4:00 P.M., 6:00 P.M., and 7:00 P.M. on Saturday to affect us. The start times of games that could let us clinch avoiding the bottom four are us at 4:00 P.M. and Delaware at UNCW at 7:00 P.M. Campbell ends at Charleston, and UNCW ends hosting Delaware, so having both of those go right on Saturday would not be surprising. If four games go right for us on Thursday, the only things we will need on Saturday are a win and a Northeastern loss at W&M, which ends when our game starts, so we will know at tipoff or a few minutes in if we have a chance at avoiding the First Round.

Good info., Evan. But to simplify this, if Northeastern beats NC A&T at home on Thursday, forget everything else even if Hofstra beats Stony Brook on Thursday. In that case, Hofstra is locked in to playing in the opening round on Friday.

If NC A&T beats Northeastern and Hofstra wins at Stony Brook, it can open the door on Saturday for avoiding the opening round. In that case, it all starts with a Hofstra win over NC A&T and a Northeastern loss at William & Mary. If both of those don't happen, Hofstra's playing on Friday. If they do happen, we can root for the other scenarios with the key being UNCW to finish high so Hofstra's earlier win and Northeastern's earlier loss against UNCW can ultimately move Hofstra to 10 and to the next round on Saturday.

[EvanJ]

https://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/202 ... tgame.html is Jerry Beach's "Keep It Perky: Delaware postgame." It was our first 78-65 win since we hosting Loyola (Maryland) on December 8, 1962. We have not trailed by more than 4 points in our last seven games against Delaware, and we won our last nine games against Delaware. Jerry wrote about the possibility of us playing Delaware in the CAA Tournament First Round, but that is unlikely. NC A&T is two games behind Delaware and lost the only head-to-head game, so they cannot pass Delaware that way. If we are in a three-way tie, NC A&T will have beaten us, and the head-to-head will be 2-1 making us the 11, 1-1 making NC A&T the 12, and 1-2 making Delaware the 13, so we would not play Delaware that way. The only way we play Delaware in the First Round is if we lose today, NC A&T wins at Northeastern (which we want to avoid the First Round, but it only matters if we win), NC A&T beats us, and Delaware wins at least one game. In that case Delaware would be the 11, NC A&T would be the 12, and we would be the 13.

Our KenPom page at https://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Hofstra that you have to pay for breaks players into groups based on the percent of possessions they are used. KenPom excludes games against non-Division I teams. Plotnikov is used for so low a percent of possessions while he is on the court that he is in the "nearly invisible" category, which no fan would describe him as, while DeCady has about 30 percent as many minutes as Plotnikov, but is in the "limited roles" category. KenPom has Graham fifth in Division I in offensive rebounding percentage. His height of 6-8 is tied for the shortest among the top 32 players.

https://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/202 ... brook.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Hofstra at Stony Brook."

https://gohofstra.com/news/2025/2/23/me ... olves.aspx is our preview titled "Pride Heads East To Face Seawolves."

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/side ... game30.pdf is our Game Notes.

Stony Brook did not write a preview.

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=549886 will have statistics.

We are favored by 6.5, and KenPom expects us to win 68-63 with a 68 percent chance of winning. Here are the rest of tonight's CAA games, which are all at 7:00 P.M. KP means KenPom's expectation followed by the percent chance that the team expected to win wins, L means line that I gave for the favored team from https://www.espn.com/mens-college-baske ... 2/group/10, and LOU means the expected score from the combination of the line and over/under.

UNCW (3.5) at Campbell:
KP: UNCW 71-70 (53%)
LOU: UNCW 71-67.5
We need to root for UNCW, but it only matters if we win and Northeastern loses.

Elon at Monmouth (1.5):
KP: Elon 73-70 (60%)
LOU: 71.5-70 (an usually large 4.5 point difference from KP)

NC A&T at Northeastern (10.5):
KP: Northeastern 78-69 (80%)
LOU: Northeastern 74.5-64
We need to root for NC A&T. If Northeastern wins, we play in the First Round.

Hampton at Drexel (3.5):
KP: Drexel 67-63 (64%)
LOU: Drexel 67-63.5
We need to root for Drexel, but it only matters if we win and Northeastern loses.

W&M at Towson (6.5)
KP: Towson 76-71 (69%)
LOU: Towson 76.5-70

Delaware at Charleston (7.5)
KenPom: Charleston 86-77 (79%)
LOU: Charleston 83.5-76

[Wags]

Stony Brook will be playing tonight's game with some heavy hearts.

Olaniyi played for Stony Brook from 2017-20 and in 2021-22, and for Miami in 2020-21. He was the Seawolves' leading scorer five years ago, in 2019-20. Life is so fragile. May his memory be a blessing.

https://x.com/StonyBrookMBB/status/1895191495612752045

[stuball888]

Horrible to be 26 years old and succumb to cancer Rip Eli
Condolences to his family and the Stony Brook community

[EvanJ]

At halftime, nobody on either team has more than 1 assist. That is so unusual that it did not happen when we trailed Northeastern 19-18 at halftime.

Edit: We have our largest lead at 51-48, but Northeastern leads by 13, and them winning guarantees that we play in the First Round. Four of seven CAA games are within 6 points.

Edit: We lead 56-51 with 3:09 left, and Stony Brook is about to shoot the first free throws of the second half for either team.

Edit: Northeastern won 69-55. We will play in the First Round.

[RainDelay]

Three conference wins and we gave them two…

[mikey75]

Well that sucked. Again.

[BringBackFootball]

I give anyone who still follows any Hofstra sports program a lot of credit.

This athletic department has hit rock bottom. Football killed. Lacrosse all but killed and now mens basketball is not far behind. I watched tonights game and it's really the first time I've watched all season. I could not believe what I was seeing. This is easily the least talented team they have put on the floor in decades. Watching a Hofstra vs Stony Brook game in an empty building with the rosters those schools put on the floor really shows how quickly things can get ugly in college sports today.

[Hof_Judge99]

The only team in the conference we can beat is leaving the CAA. Sad.

[Mark19th]

Two more games and this disastrous season is over. This was a coaching failure. It won’t happen, but maybe Hofstra should move on from Speedy. When a team actually gets way worse as the season goes on, the coaches have to take the blame.


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[mikey75]

BBF is exactly right the athletic department has tanked. Cole's been a nothingburger. Speedy has been awful this year and quite frankly a little bizarre. Need something new, if not bringing back football (unlikely) then bring in hockey. Hofstra is in the perfect position for hockey.

[Jojogunne]

Stony Brook will be playing tonight's game with some heavy hearts.

Olaniyi played for Stony Brook from 2017-20 and in 2021-22, and for Miami in 2020-21. He was the Seawolves' leading scorer five years ago, in 2019-20. Life is so fragile. May his memory be a blessing.

https://x.com/StonyBrookMBB/status/1895191495612752045

Extending my condolences to Eli's family.

[Wags]

Hard to fathom that the same team that beat UNCW and was up 18 at Towson is 0-2 against the team that is 1-14 against the rest of the conference.

Sixth CAA game they should've closed and didn't. Should be 11-6 instead of 5-12. But there are reasons they don't close them so the are what they are.

First time in 12 years (the infamous 7-25 season in 2012-13) that they failed to win consecutive CAA regular season games (and, of course, they didn't do so in the CAA tourney that year either).

0-5 in the black uniforms. Can we retire those now?

[mikey75]

yes, please. The Black Uni's need to go.

[dutchPride86]

Hell if it came out that this team was roped up in some sort of gambling scandal I'd almost be happy at this point, because at least then we'd have a logical explanation for what's happened to them.

I never thought Speedy was an amazing x/o or in-game coach, but it still hasn't stopped being stunning to see just how poorly coached this team is this year. And I've never seen a team with less intestinal fortitude in my life