Post by Commissioner on Nov 24, 2021 20:38:03 GMT -5
Who: Hofstra Pride Flying Dutchmen
Where: Mack Sports Center, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
TV: Flosports.tv/caa (pay)
Radio: WLQV 1500 AM & 92.7 FM
This Saturday will mark the first ever meeting between Detroit and Hofstra. Both mid-majors were predicted to finish near the top of their respective conferences, but both have struggled early against a tough schedule. The Titans, as we all know, are winless after 4 road games; Hofstra was 1-4 after opening with 5 road games, before beating Malloy College, a D-2 school, in their first home game on Wednesday. In their losses, Hofstra has fared the better of the two, playing a tougher schedule and playing it closer. The Dutchmen lost to then #15 Houston in overtime, to Iona by 8, to then #20 Maryland by just two, and at Richmond by 13. Their D-1 win was a 10-point victory at Duquesne.
About the only connection I could find between Detroit and Hofstra was the tenuous one of Butch von Breda Kolff, who coached at Hofstra from 1955 to 1962, compiling a 136-43 record and two runner-up finishes in the NCAA College Division tournament before leaving to coach Bill Bradley at Princeton. Von Breda Kolff was then hired to coach the LA Lakers. He coached there two seasons, reaching the NBA finals each year. In game 7 of the 1969 NBA finals against Boston, Wilt Chamberlain picked up his fifth foul midway through the fourth quarter, and shortly thereafter asked out of the game with knee pain. With Wilt the Stilt out, the Lakers cut a seven-point deficit to one point, the last basket coming from back-up center Mel Counts. Chamberlain then motioned to Van Breda Kolff that he was ready to go back in the game, to which Van Breda Kolff—who had never gotten along with his star center--told him, "We’re doing well enough without you." (Some accounts have him also saying, “Sit your big ass down.”) The Lakers lost by two points, and van Breda Kolff resigned before he could be fired. Van Breda Kolff was then hired to coach the Detroit Pistons, who have no connection, really, to the Titans, except they are both teams claiming to represent Detroit. (And you complain about Tony Paul going off on tangents about Oakland.)
In Van Breda Kolff’s second season with the Pistons, the team went 45-37, its first winning season in 15 years. But Butch, angry over being cursed at by fans, quit 10 games into the next year, with the Pistons off to a 6-4 start. He later coached a number of professional, college, and even high school teams, including a second, largely unsuccessful stint at Hofstra in the late 80s and early 90s. In one of the more famous acts of his career, while coaching the hapless Memphis Tams of the ABA, he left the floor as the Tams were getting blown out by San Antonio, went to a bar across the street, and ordered a scotch and water.
Outside of the vague Van Breda Kolff connection, so far as I can tell, no person from Michigan has ever seen Hofstra’s campus or verified that it really exists.
For decades, Hofstra’s athletic teams were known as the “Flying Dutchmen,” but some time in the 1980s the school apparently began using a pair of Tigers as its mascots. So in 2004 Hofstra officially changed its athletic nickname to “the Pride,” thus trading in an unusual and cool nickname tied into the surrounding area’s heritage, for an unusual but boring name with no connection to the college. I don’t know what their alums and fans think, except to note that their fan forum is still called “FlyingDutchmanFans.com.” So you tell me. Anyway, this site does not recognize the name Pride. We’ll call them the Dutchmen, and address their players accordingly. Hopefully, they'll return the favor and refer to us as "Detroit." Period.
OK, let’s get down to business. As noted at the outset, the Dutchmen, from the Colonial Athletic Association (one of the many conferences once behind the Horizon but now lapping us ever other year or so), have played two ranked teams very close. Both time they collapsed at the end. At Houston, the Dutch took the lead about 2 minutes in and never trailed again in regulation. The lead peaked at 13 with 8:30 left, but Houston tied it in the final minute and won in OT. The Maryland game was a see-saw affair but the Dutchmen led by 4 with in 70 seconds to play, only to have the Terps tie it with 22 seconds to play, get the stop on Hofstra, and win it on free throws with 4 seconds left after a stupid Hofstra foul. In other losses, Hofstra trailed at Iona by just a point before being outscored 15-8 in the final three and a half minutes, and trailed Richmond by a point before being outscored 16-4 down the stretch.
So, if the Titans are down late—which, if you haven’t noticed, has been a distinct possibility in every Titan game for nearly a decade—don’t give up the ship. So far, at least, the Dutch have been a 35-minute basketball team, and games last 40.
Hofstra is led by 1st year head coach Speedy (Vander) Claxton, a star Dutchman player in the late 1990s who was promoted when Joe Mihalich retired. One of Speedy’s first moves was to abandon Mihalich’s zone and install a Dutchman-to-man defense, but so far it hasn’t worked out that well—KenPom ranks the Dutch 223rd in defensive efficiency. But the Dutchmen are a very respectable 96th in offensive efficiency, and our Titans rank an abysmal 329th in defensive efficiency, so look for Hofsta to score. Of course, the Titans have a solid offensive efficiency rank—115—so this could be a scorefest. The only reason to take the under is that both teams have been playing a slow tempo game this year (which isn’t how we usually think of the Titans), well below average in possessions per game.
The big star for the Dutchmen has been Zach Vande Cooks, a peppy little guard who is spending his bonus year on Long Island after scoring almost 1800 points in 4 years at NJIT. He started the year as the 7th active career scoring leader in Division 1 (Antoine Davis began at #4). He’s averaging 18.5 points and knocking down 38% of his threes.
Jalen Vander Ray, now in his 5th year at Hofstra, is the other guard. He’s also a prolific scorer, averaging 15 ppg after averaging 19.3 last year for the Dutchmen. These two are supported on the wing by the Darlinstone Dubar, a 6-6 soph averaging 13 points, and with a name so good it doesn't need a "van" or "vander" or "vande." Aaron Vander Estrada, another wing, is a true junior already on his third school. He was MAAC Freshman of the year in 2020 with St. Peter’s, spent last year riding the pine at Oregon, and has now retreated back to the mid-majors, where he’s chipping in almost 12 points and 6 rebounds per game.
The final starter may or may not be Abayomi Van Iyiola, a 6-10, 235 lb. senior transfer from Arkansas, and the team’s best rebounder. Iyiola has missed Hofstra’s last three games due to COVID-19 protocols. Iyiola is another guy who who found that P6 proved too much for the man (“too much for the man, he couldn’t make it”). After two very productive years at Stetson, he transferred to Arkansas, where in two years he played a total of 1 minute. Now he’s back at the mid-major level and was averaging 8 points and 9 rebounds in Hofstra’s first three games. I don’t know if he’ll be able to play on Saturday. If he doesn’t play on Saturday, look for Kvonn Vander Cramer, a 6-6 soph,** to start.
In addition to Cramer, if he doesn’t start, we’ll see two guys off the bench, guards Omar Vande Silverio and Caleb Vande Burgess. The former shoots, while the latter is a pure pass-first point guard. Jerrod Simmons, a 6-8 forward, is out with a leg injury and presumably will not play, so depending on Iyiola’s availability, Hofstra will go 7 or 8 deep. Freshman Jaquan Vander Carlos could play a few minutes.
You’ll notice that without Iyiola, Hofstra doesn’t have a lot of size. OTOH, with Koka, Sylla, and Waterman all out, neither do we, and Hofstra played Maryland to a standstill without Iyiola. Still, it could be a good game for Oduro to throw some muscle around in the paint, maybe repeat that 7-7 performance at Toledo. But Hofstra both shoots and gives up a lot of three pointers, so this game is likely to be decided on the perimeter. They’ve got a balanced attack and several guys who can and will shoot the three. It would surely be nice if Waterman were to come back.
I’d also like to see the Titans get out and run a bit. We haven’t done that much this year and it seems to me that we have the people to do it. I’d expect to see this game played in the 70s. Hopefully, Hofstra still hasn’t learned how to close out a close game. Given the number of upperclassmen on this team, this shouldn’t be a problem for them, but obviously it has been. Can the Titans take advantage? Probably not, but hope (the feeling, not the Flying Dutchmen from West Michigan) springs eternal.
Probable Hofstra Starters
G – Zach Cooks, 5-11 Gr. (18.5 ppg, 3.3 apg, 38.3% 3Pt)
G – Jalen Ray, 6-2 Gr. (15.3 ppg, 47.1% 3Pt)
G – Aaron Estrada, 6-3 Jr. (11.7 ppg
G/SF – Darlinstone Dubar, 6-7 Soph. (12.7 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 36.0% 3Pt)
F – K’vonn Cramer, 6-6 RS Soph. (7.5 ppg, 5.3 rpg)
Bench
PG – Caleb Burgess, 6-3 Jr. (0.5 ppg, 4.0 apg)
SG – Omar Silverio, 6-3 Sr. (8.3 ppg, 32.4% 3Pt)
Questionable
C – Abayomi Iyiola, 6-10 RS Sr. (8.0 ppg, 9.3 rpg, 80.0% FG)
**Cramer’s story is worth a mention. He was a blue chipper as a high school sophomore, but tore his ACL before his junior year and missed the season. He was ready to come back the next summer but a strep infection sidelined and then infected that knee area. Another ACL surgery caused him to miss his senior year, and then spend a redshirt freshman season at Hofstra—three years without playing before last year. Gotta appreciate the young man’s grit.
Where: Mack Sports Center, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
TV: Flosports.tv/caa (pay)
Radio: WLQV 1500 AM & 92.7 FM
This Saturday will mark the first ever meeting between Detroit and Hofstra. Both mid-majors were predicted to finish near the top of their respective conferences, but both have struggled early against a tough schedule. The Titans, as we all know, are winless after 4 road games; Hofstra was 1-4 after opening with 5 road games, before beating Malloy College, a D-2 school, in their first home game on Wednesday. In their losses, Hofstra has fared the better of the two, playing a tougher schedule and playing it closer. The Dutchmen lost to then #15 Houston in overtime, to Iona by 8, to then #20 Maryland by just two, and at Richmond by 13. Their D-1 win was a 10-point victory at Duquesne.
About the only connection I could find between Detroit and Hofstra was the tenuous one of Butch von Breda Kolff, who coached at Hofstra from 1955 to 1962, compiling a 136-43 record and two runner-up finishes in the NCAA College Division tournament before leaving to coach Bill Bradley at Princeton. Von Breda Kolff was then hired to coach the LA Lakers. He coached there two seasons, reaching the NBA finals each year. In game 7 of the 1969 NBA finals against Boston, Wilt Chamberlain picked up his fifth foul midway through the fourth quarter, and shortly thereafter asked out of the game with knee pain. With Wilt the Stilt out, the Lakers cut a seven-point deficit to one point, the last basket coming from back-up center Mel Counts. Chamberlain then motioned to Van Breda Kolff that he was ready to go back in the game, to which Van Breda Kolff—who had never gotten along with his star center--told him, "We’re doing well enough without you." (Some accounts have him also saying, “Sit your big ass down.”) The Lakers lost by two points, and van Breda Kolff resigned before he could be fired. Van Breda Kolff was then hired to coach the Detroit Pistons, who have no connection, really, to the Titans, except they are both teams claiming to represent Detroit. (And you complain about Tony Paul going off on tangents about Oakland.)
In Van Breda Kolff’s second season with the Pistons, the team went 45-37, its first winning season in 15 years. But Butch, angry over being cursed at by fans, quit 10 games into the next year, with the Pistons off to a 6-4 start. He later coached a number of professional, college, and even high school teams, including a second, largely unsuccessful stint at Hofstra in the late 80s and early 90s. In one of the more famous acts of his career, while coaching the hapless Memphis Tams of the ABA, he left the floor as the Tams were getting blown out by San Antonio, went to a bar across the street, and ordered a scotch and water.
Outside of the vague Van Breda Kolff connection, so far as I can tell, no person from Michigan has ever seen Hofstra’s campus or verified that it really exists.
For decades, Hofstra’s athletic teams were known as the “Flying Dutchmen,” but some time in the 1980s the school apparently began using a pair of Tigers as its mascots. So in 2004 Hofstra officially changed its athletic nickname to “the Pride,” thus trading in an unusual and cool nickname tied into the surrounding area’s heritage, for an unusual but boring name with no connection to the college. I don’t know what their alums and fans think, except to note that their fan forum is still called “FlyingDutchmanFans.com.” So you tell me. Anyway, this site does not recognize the name Pride. We’ll call them the Dutchmen, and address their players accordingly. Hopefully, they'll return the favor and refer to us as "Detroit." Period.
OK, let’s get down to business. As noted at the outset, the Dutchmen, from the Colonial Athletic Association (one of the many conferences once behind the Horizon but now lapping us ever other year or so), have played two ranked teams very close. Both time they collapsed at the end. At Houston, the Dutch took the lead about 2 minutes in and never trailed again in regulation. The lead peaked at 13 with 8:30 left, but Houston tied it in the final minute and won in OT. The Maryland game was a see-saw affair but the Dutchmen led by 4 with in 70 seconds to play, only to have the Terps tie it with 22 seconds to play, get the stop on Hofstra, and win it on free throws with 4 seconds left after a stupid Hofstra foul. In other losses, Hofstra trailed at Iona by just a point before being outscored 15-8 in the final three and a half minutes, and trailed Richmond by a point before being outscored 16-4 down the stretch.
So, if the Titans are down late—which, if you haven’t noticed, has been a distinct possibility in every Titan game for nearly a decade—don’t give up the ship. So far, at least, the Dutch have been a 35-minute basketball team, and games last 40.
Hofstra is led by 1st year head coach Speedy (Vander) Claxton, a star Dutchman player in the late 1990s who was promoted when Joe Mihalich retired. One of Speedy’s first moves was to abandon Mihalich’s zone and install a Dutchman-to-man defense, but so far it hasn’t worked out that well—KenPom ranks the Dutch 223rd in defensive efficiency. But the Dutchmen are a very respectable 96th in offensive efficiency, and our Titans rank an abysmal 329th in defensive efficiency, so look for Hofsta to score. Of course, the Titans have a solid offensive efficiency rank—115—so this could be a scorefest. The only reason to take the under is that both teams have been playing a slow tempo game this year (which isn’t how we usually think of the Titans), well below average in possessions per game.
The big star for the Dutchmen has been Zach Vande Cooks, a peppy little guard who is spending his bonus year on Long Island after scoring almost 1800 points in 4 years at NJIT. He started the year as the 7th active career scoring leader in Division 1 (Antoine Davis began at #4). He’s averaging 18.5 points and knocking down 38% of his threes.
Jalen Vander Ray, now in his 5th year at Hofstra, is the other guard. He’s also a prolific scorer, averaging 15 ppg after averaging 19.3 last year for the Dutchmen. These two are supported on the wing by the Darlinstone Dubar, a 6-6 soph averaging 13 points, and with a name so good it doesn't need a "van" or "vander" or "vande." Aaron Vander Estrada, another wing, is a true junior already on his third school. He was MAAC Freshman of the year in 2020 with St. Peter’s, spent last year riding the pine at Oregon, and has now retreated back to the mid-majors, where he’s chipping in almost 12 points and 6 rebounds per game.
The final starter may or may not be Abayomi Van Iyiola, a 6-10, 235 lb. senior transfer from Arkansas, and the team’s best rebounder. Iyiola has missed Hofstra’s last three games due to COVID-19 protocols. Iyiola is another guy who who found that P6 proved too much for the man (“too much for the man, he couldn’t make it”). After two very productive years at Stetson, he transferred to Arkansas, where in two years he played a total of 1 minute. Now he’s back at the mid-major level and was averaging 8 points and 9 rebounds in Hofstra’s first three games. I don’t know if he’ll be able to play on Saturday. If he doesn’t play on Saturday, look for Kvonn Vander Cramer, a 6-6 soph,** to start.
In addition to Cramer, if he doesn’t start, we’ll see two guys off the bench, guards Omar Vande Silverio and Caleb Vande Burgess. The former shoots, while the latter is a pure pass-first point guard. Jerrod Simmons, a 6-8 forward, is out with a leg injury and presumably will not play, so depending on Iyiola’s availability, Hofstra will go 7 or 8 deep. Freshman Jaquan Vander Carlos could play a few minutes.
You’ll notice that without Iyiola, Hofstra doesn’t have a lot of size. OTOH, with Koka, Sylla, and Waterman all out, neither do we, and Hofstra played Maryland to a standstill without Iyiola. Still, it could be a good game for Oduro to throw some muscle around in the paint, maybe repeat that 7-7 performance at Toledo. But Hofstra both shoots and gives up a lot of three pointers, so this game is likely to be decided on the perimeter. They’ve got a balanced attack and several guys who can and will shoot the three. It would surely be nice if Waterman were to come back.
I’d also like to see the Titans get out and run a bit. We haven’t done that much this year and it seems to me that we have the people to do it. I’d expect to see this game played in the 70s. Hopefully, Hofstra still hasn’t learned how to close out a close game. Given the number of upperclassmen on this team, this shouldn’t be a problem for them, but obviously it has been. Can the Titans take advantage? Probably not, but hope (the feeling, not the Flying Dutchmen from West Michigan) springs eternal.
Probable Hofstra Starters
G – Zach Cooks, 5-11 Gr. (18.5 ppg, 3.3 apg, 38.3% 3Pt)
G – Jalen Ray, 6-2 Gr. (15.3 ppg, 47.1% 3Pt)
G – Aaron Estrada, 6-3 Jr. (11.7 ppg
G/SF – Darlinstone Dubar, 6-7 Soph. (12.7 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 36.0% 3Pt)
F – K’vonn Cramer, 6-6 RS Soph. (7.5 ppg, 5.3 rpg)
Bench
PG – Caleb Burgess, 6-3 Jr. (0.5 ppg, 4.0 apg)
SG – Omar Silverio, 6-3 Sr. (8.3 ppg, 32.4% 3Pt)
Questionable
C – Abayomi Iyiola, 6-10 RS Sr. (8.0 ppg, 9.3 rpg, 80.0% FG)
**Cramer’s story is worth a mention. He was a blue chipper as a high school sophomore, but tore his ACL before his junior year and missed the season. He was ready to come back the next summer but a strep infection sidelined and then infected that knee area. Another ACL surgery caused him to miss his senior year, and then spend a redshirt freshman season at Hofstra—three years without playing before last year. Gotta appreciate the young man’s grit.