Ugly But Effective for the Pride

It was not for the faint of heart. It was a game that maybe only Bruiser Flint would truly love. At the Mack Center, two teams played hard nose defense, but left their shooting touches at their last game, along with ball control. Hofstra went out to a 21-5 first half lead and barely held on for a 44-39 win last night.

How ugly was it? Consider these facts

1) Manhattan shot 12 of 56 from the floor (21 percent), including 2 of 14 from the beyond the arc. At one point in the first half, the Jaspers were shooting 2 of 20 from the field.

2) Hofstra shot 18 of 52 from the floor (34.6 percent), including 2 of 12 from beyond the arc.

3) Hofstra, who entered the game leading the CAA in free throw shooting at 75 percent, shot 6 of 16 from the free throw line. Manhattan started off shooting 7 of 13 from the line, but hit 6 of their last 8 to go 13 of 21 from the line.

4) Hofstra, who had been second in the CAA in assist to turnover ratio, had six assists...and NINETEEN turnovers. Manhattan had 3 assists and 10 turnovers.

5) The Pride had as many personal fouls as their two leading scorers, Halil Kanacevic and Charles Jenkins, had combined points - 20.

6) Charles Jenkins, who entered the game shooting 48 percent from the field and averaging 20 plus points per game, shot 3 of 14 and had only 9 points, as the Jaspers basically double teamed him the entire game.

7) Miklos Szabo, who shot 11 of 14 against Towson, was 2 of 7 from the field last night. He missed a lot of easy shots.

The bright side - defense. Hofstra had 12 blocks to continue their lead in the CAA in average blocks per game and outrebounded Manhattan 44-33. As mentioned, the Jaspers did a terrific job in double teaming Jenkins and he had an incredibly difficult time finding open players. Jenkins did have four steals of his own.

Contiuning the bright side, the Pride have to be impressed with the play of freshman forward Kanacevic, who led the Pride with a double double - 11 points, 10 rebounds.

Manhattan, who fell to 5-4, got 10 points each from Patrick Bouli and Rico Pickett. However, leading scorer Darryl Crawford, who came into the game averaging 16 points per game, only had 6 on 3 of 12 shooting.

The baskets seem to have large lids on them last night. A good part of it was defense, but also a good part of it was the teams missing easy shots, or forcing wild ones. It wasn't pretty, but for one team, Hofstra, it was effective for one night. Neither team though can keep playing like this or neither team will have a winning record this season.