BOSTON – What more was there for Mo Cassara to say? Saturday’s 58-51 loss at Northeastern was a case of déjà vu for Hofstra, as they’ve seen this one before.
“We continue to hang around and be in games and have opportunities,” said the Hofstra mentor.
Hofstra is now 1-10 in CAA play, but they have been agonizingly close in all but two CAA losses. They have dropped 17 and 12-point decisions to VCU. The other eight games have been losses by a combined 37 points, including a one-point and two two-point losses. While the Pride are now tied at the bottom of the CAA, they aren’t all that far away from knocking on the door of the first division.
The biggest issue for the Pride is offense. Although they could be better defensively, the Pride isn’t losing games at that end of the floor. Opponents are shooting over 43 percent against them, and they have been okay on the glass. They force over 15 turnovers per game as well.
“We have to continue to find ways to get the ball in the basket,” said Cassara. “I think our defensive effort is in the ballpark of where we have to be to win.”
The Pride have shot the ball reasonably well on the season, although they could improve there. The biggest stat is one that they actually did well with on Saturday, which is taking care of the ball. The Pride turn it over more than 15 times per outing, a number topped by only two CAA teams. Even with just ten turnovers, though, at crucial times the Pride committed them. On several occasions on Saturday, they had a chance to get closer and keep a rally going, but an unforced turnover would snuff that out.
“One turnover, for us, almost seems like four or five right now,” said Cassara.
A particular area of concern has been the point guard spot, and it’s not that the Pride are lacking capable players there. Rhode Island transfer Stevie Mejia started the first seven games, but an injury led to senior Dwan McMillan taking over that spot. Mejia hasn’t been anything like he was at Rhode Island, where he took very good care of the ball and ran the offense well. He’s still not 100 percent, and while McMillan has provided a steady hand, they can’t effectively rest him without losing something while Mejia is still not all the way back.
There hasn’t been an issue getting scoring from CAA leading scorer Mike Moore, and at times that has also been true of Nat Lester, who redshirted last year. Lester struggled with six points on Saturday and while he’s had big games like his 33-point effort early on, he’s also had games where he hasn’t been much of a factor offensively. Saturday was his fourth single-digit outing on the year, and he’s had five games where he has scored exactly 10 points.
Hofstra’s frontcourt isn’t one of the best in the CAA, but it’s not bad. Junior David Imes is better than serviceable and sophomore Stephen Nwaukoni has made his way into the starting lineup, and freshman Moussa Kone has been serviceable off the bench and has better days ahead. As much as this team was sure to miss Charles Jenkins, they also miss Greg Washington quite a bit, because he was a defensive presence inside and was also a senior on that team last season.
After playing four of six on the road, Hofstra now goes home for a week. Included in that recent stretch was being on the road for three of the four games they just played during the conference’s annual stretch of four games in eight days from one Saturday to the next. Cassara indicated that there is a level of frustration from the close losses, and that’s not surprising. When a good effort doesn’t have a bottom-line reward, it’s never easy, but this team hasn’t quit yet and surely won’t in the future. They’re going to keep hanging around and try to do more than just that.
