BracketBuster Win Gives Hope for Hofstra (Recap of Siena vs. Hofstra)

Over the past several years, I have been a supporter of the BracketBuster series.  Yes, it's been mostly a marketing tool for the World Wide Leader to say that they give the mid major teams a needed spotlight during the season. But some spotlight is better than no spotlight at all, which was the case for mid major teams before the BracketBusters.

The BracketBusters have also often been an important factor in helping mid major teams get to the NCAA Tournament.  In certainly two cases, 2006 with George Mason and 2011 with VCU, without their BracketBuster wins at Wichita State (how ironic is that?), those teams probably don't make the NCAA Tournament, let alone get to the Final Four.

I have often thought the way ESPN does the home and away team pools for the BracketBusters takes away from having more meaningful games for more teams.  Such was the case for this year's series.  You had seemingly too many strong home teams and not enough good road teams.

But what ESPN did this season finally put me on the other side of the fence.  They rewarded several teams television games based on their RPI and not their record or standing in conference. Northern Iowa, who was in seventh place in the Missouri Valley with a 4-7 conference record when they were picked and Missouri State, who was third place in the Missouri Valley with a 6-5 conference record and a 13-10 overall record when they were picked, are two teams that immediately come to mind (both teams lost their BracketBuster games yesterday).

Meanwhile, George Mason, Stony Brook and Loyola Maryland, three teams that were in first place in their respective conferences at the time of the BracketBuster selections, were denied television games.  If you are not going to reward teams based on merit, why then have the BracketBuster series?   By the way, George Mason and Stony Brook won their non-televised BracketBuster games, while Loyola Maryland plays theirs today.

Now let's get to the other over one hundred plus teams that are a part of the BracketBuster series due to their conference affiliations and don't get a sniff of a televised game. Based on ESPN's selections, those teams end up playing non conference home and home games with teams close to their regional area this season and next.  In the case of Hofstra and Siena, the brilliant World Wide Leader folks decided to match these two teams for a SECOND time in the BracketBuster series.

I was at the Mack Center in 2006 EXACTLY six years ago to the day when Hofstra first hosted Siena in a BracketBuster game.  Hofstra was snubbed out of a television game because AGAIN there were too many good home teams and not enough good road teams.  The game was memorable for two reasons.  One, Adrian Uter had probably his most dominant game with the Pride scoring a career high twenty seven points and added four blocks in a 76-62 win over the Saints. Second, Siena head coach Fran McCaffery AND his wife were both tossed from the game.


So here we were exactly six years later.  The game had much less meaning than the game in 2006.  Then, Hofstra was one of the best teams in the CAA, fighting for a bid to the NCAA Tournament.  This season, Hofstra only has two conference wins.   You could say Hofstra and Siena were battling for the best team to have beaten Iona, a team playing a featured televised game at home vs. Nevada at the same time.

Though there was a crowd of two thousand people, the arena atmosphere was very flat.  The Hofstra Pep Band sounded worse than ever and that's saying something.  You're not supposed to hear a xylophone as clear as day with a brass section.  There also weren't that many students in the Lions' Den student section, which was disappointing to this Hofstra alum.  In fact, there was only polite applause when Hofstra honored Mike Moore for scoring his 1000th career Hofstra point in not even two full seasons (he transferred to Hofstra from Fordham after his sophomore season).

And Siena decided to come out as flat as the atmosphere.  The Saints had a turnover in each of their first four possessions, and nine turnovers in barely over five minutes.  Siena coach Mitch Buonaguro had to call two timeouts in the first four minutes of the game.  As a result, the Pride went up early 8-0.

But has been the case many times this season, Hofstra couldn't fully capitalize on all of Siena's mistakes.  After taking the early eight point lead, the Pride missed four out of five shots and committed two turnovers.  This allowed the Saints to go on a 10-2 run and tie the game at ten with a little less than twelve minutes left in the half.

From there, both teams shot the ball very well the remainder of the half.  Siena shot sixty five percent from the field while Hofstra shot forty five percent.  The teams scored in different ways. In the Saints' case, OD Anosike was unstoppable in the paint, hitting all five of his baskets and scoring twelve points.  Meanwhile, Hofstra had five three pointers in the first half, which is more than they average for an entire game on the season.  Mike Moore and Steve Mejia combined for those five three pointers.

The game was tied eight times in the first half.  So it made perfect sense that the game was tied at thirty seven at the half.  At halftime, my older son Matthew and I went over to say hi to Defiantly Dutch and his much better half, Michelle.  It's become an annual game ritual to go over to see my two good friends at halftime and talk about the first half.

One of the things we talked about at halftime was the improved play of Mejia.  In his previous three games, he scored twice in double figures and in the game against Drexel, Mejia had six steals.  He was also starting to shoot the ball better and he had two three pointers against Delaware.

In this game, Mejia had a strong first half and he continued with an equally strong second half.  He buried another two three pointers, giving him four on the game.  He also had another two steals in the second half, also giving him four on the game.

The start of the second half was almost a repeat of the first half.  The Pride scored twelve of the first fourteen points and went up by ten, 49-39.  But the Saints rallied, scoring the next eight points to cut the lead to two, 49-47.  Siena would eventually take the lead, 59-57 with eight and a half minutes left.  It looked like another game where Hofstra would have a second half lead only to see the other team rally and win.

But this time, Hofstra would not be denied.  The Pride would score their next twelve points on three shots beyond the arc, two by Mejia, and one old fashioned three point play by Stephen Nwaukoni.  Hofstra would regain the lead, but it would only be two points, 71-69 after Anosike hit another layup with a little less than four minutes left.

In many of the Pride's close losses, they failed to make stops down the stretch.  This time was different.  Hofstra would outscore Siena 10-0 the rest of the way.   The Pride forced two turnovers and held the Saints to four missed shots in the last several minutes.  Siena didn't even try to put up a last second shot after Hofstra let the shot clock expire in the last few seconds. The fans gave the Pride a standing ovation at the end of their 81-69 win over the Saints.

Moore had even a better second half, scoring sixteen of his thirty points in the final twenty minutes to lead all scorers with thirty.  Mejia had sixteen points while Nathaniel Lester added fifteen. Mejia and Dwan McMillan combined for thirteen of Hofstra's twenty one assists (with only ten turnovers).

Anosike had a double double with twenty two points and twelve rebounds.  Kyle Downey added seventeen points.  Siena shot fifty eight percent for the game and out-rebounded Hofstra 36-23.  But the Pride forced twenty one Saints' turnovers and Hofstra shot eleven of twenty three from beyond the arc, easily their best three point shooting performance of the season.  The bright side for Siena was neither Buonaguro, nor his wife were tossed from the game.

Hofstra was one of seven CAA teams to win a BracketBuster game yesterday and the only team in the bottom half of the Colonial standings to do so.  With two games left in conference vs. tenth place William and Mary and eighth place UNCW, the Pride have a chance to finish the regular season on a high note before heading into the CAA Tournament.

In 2006, the BracketBuster win over Siena started a six game winning streak for Hofstra that lasted through the CAA Championship game when they lost to UNCW.   If the Pride keeps shooting the three like they did yesterday,  the 2012 BracketBuster win over Siena might just start another win streak.

Sean Armand's Virtuoso Solo (Recap of Siena vs. Iona)

Having attended many concerts at Madison Square Garden in my lifetime, there is often an opening act before the headliner.  The opening act is usually not that good, but the headliner more than makes up for that fact.  And often, the headlining band has a solo performance, usually a virtuoso guitarist, who has the crowd buzzing in amazement.  Such was the case in last night's Siena vs. Iona game.

Last night was a college basketball doubleheader at the World's Most Famous Arena.  The opening game/act was Louisville vs. St John's, who both decided to put on a brickfest for the first twenty minutes.  The Red Storm shot five of thirty five from the field in the first half (fourteen percent), while the Cardinals only shot thirty four percent to lead 29-18 at the half.  Louisville would win handily by fifteen, 73-58.

Thankfully the headliner game, started shortly thereafter.  As the public address announcer noted, the game featured "two mid major powers".  And the crowd, mainly made up of red for that local Power Six conference team, decided to stick around to see what the mid major fuss was all about.  After witnessing the headliner game myself, I am sure many in the audience were glad they stayed.

Two seasons ago, Siena was truly a "mid major power".  In 2009-10, the Saints would win their third straight MAAC conference championship and thus make their third straight NCAA appearance.  During this period of dominance, the Siena would win two NCAA Tournament games.

But the nucleus of that team graduated after that 2009-10 season.  Sensing that a rebuild was going to be in order,  Fran McCaffery decided instead to grab a huge payday and take the Iowa head coaching position. Mitch Buonaguro got the head coaching position and struggled in his first season as the Saints went 8-10 in conference, 13-18 overall.  This season Siena has been about the same, 0-2 in conference and 5-7 overall entering the contest.

They were playing an Iona team coming off a surprising loss to Hofstra, 82-75.  In that game, the Gaels had an uncharacteristic eighteen turnovers in the first half as they were down fifteen at halftime and never could recover.  Coach Tim Cluess took the responsibility for the loss and they were looking to rebound in front of a large crowd on perhaps the world's largest stage.

The fans in attendance were actually pretty quiet at the start of the game.  Siena actually came out on fire, taking an early 16-14 lead with about fourteen and half minutes left.  The Saints hit seven of their first ten shots.  But the pace clearly favored their opponents, the Gaels, the team that is fourth in the country in scoring offense, averaging 85.5 points per game.

Iona would take advantage of that pace as they went on a 21-9 run, powered by five three pointers, three by Jermel Jenkins and two by Momo Jones.  The score was now 37-23 Gaels with 7:15 left in the first half. The audience was now fully into the headlining act.  And they were about to get the virtuoso solo performance.

Iona's Sean Armand was one of Tim Cluess' highly touted recruits entering the 2010-11 season.  He played about eleven minutes per game last season, averaging slightly over six points per game.  With the graduation of Rashon Dwight, Armand appeared to be in line for a starting position this season.  But Jones transferred from Arizona to Iona to be near his ailing grandmother and received a hardship waiver to be able to play this season.

As a result, Armand was relegated to the bench again.  He has averaged thirteen minutes per game this season.   However, Armand has improved his three point shooting from 42 percent last season to 44 percent this season going into last night's game.  And he improved on that shooting percentage last night, as he got to show off that shooting talent in a big way.

After the Saints cut the lead to twelve, 37-25 with six and a half minutes left, Armand took over.  He would score the next TWENTY Iona points by himself.  He warmed up first with a layup.  Then like a great guitarist, Armand nailed two sweet riffs in a row, or in his case, buried two three pointers.  And like a great performer who knows his abilities and how to please the audience, Armand kept firing away.  He would hit six three pointers in total over those final six and a half minutes.

Armand by himself outscored the local Power Six conference team in their first half., 20-18.  Iona was up 57-31 at halftime.  As impressive as Armand was, the more impressive fact might have been that the Gaels scored fifty seven points and their leading scorer on the season, Michael Glover only had two of them.

With the game over for all intensive purposes, there were only two things left on the mind of the fans watching the game.  One, would Iona scored one hundred points again?  And two, what would Armand do for an encore?

Well, Tim Cluess knows how to keep the audience happy and had Armand start the second half.  And he didn't disappoint.   Three minutes in, Armand buried his second attempt of the half.   Not even two minutes later, another one, which was his eighth of the night.  The Armand watch was now officially on as the Iona record for three pointers in a game and the MAAC conference record for three pointers in a game were on the line.

After Glover briefly interrupted his performance with a layup, Armand hit his ninth three pointer to put the Gaels up thirty one, 70-39 with a little less than thirteen and a half minutes left in the game.   That broke the previous Iona record of eight by Kyle Smyth, the man he replaced in the lineup at the start of the second half.  It also tied the MAAC record of nine, previously held by five players.  Now all that remained was the record breaking tenth three-pointer..

The fans didn't have to wait too long for that record breaking tenth one.   Armand hit that with ten and a half minutes left to put the Gaels up thirty five.  He attempted three more shots from beyond the arc on the night, but missed on all three.  No doubt he was tired from going ten of nineteen from the three point line. Plus, thirty two points is a pretty good night.

Iona would actually go up by as many as forty one points before they settled for a 95-59 win.  They didn't get their one hundred points.  But the designated home team dominated Siena in front of a large New York City hoops loving crowd that was starving for made baskets after the first game of the evening.

The Gaels were a mind boggling seventeen of thirty nine from beyond the arc.  The nation's leading assist team had twenty one assists on the night, nine by Scott Machado and seven by Jones, who had fourteen points. Jenkins had sixteen points and Glover ended up with ten.  Siena was led by Evan Hines, who scored twenty two points and OD Anosuke had twelve points and thirteen rebounds.  After hitting seven of their first ten shots, the Saints only hit sixteen of their last fifty three shots.

As the crowd exited the Garden late last night, they witnessed another record breaking performance.  But it wasn't by a Power Six conference team player.  It was the "mid major power" who had the three point virtuoso who broke two records on the night.   Quite a feat in the World's Most Famous Arena.