Justin Wright-Foreman may have led Hofstra in scoring Thursday, but Jacquil Taylor (above) was arguably most valuable to Pride in its victory over Towson. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
HEMPSTEAD, NY -- In its first game after its first Colonial Athletic Association loss -- suffered at Northeastern on February 2, Hofstra proved it remained the class of the conference by thrashing Elon and exploding for 102 points, revealing at the same time that the Pride could not only respond from a first dose of adversity, but do so strongly.
A similar question was asked Thursday night, when Hofstra -- in its first game removed from a surprising road upset at the hands of UNCW last Saturday -- returned to the Mack Sports Complex to take on a Towson team looking to position itself forwardly and avoid a play-in game in the upcoming CAA tournament.
Unlike the Elon game, the road traveled was far more circuitous, yet it led to the all-too-familiar destination, one that fans on Long Island have seen no other variation of this season.
Trailing by as many as 10 points in the second half, the Pride seemed resigned to fall into its first two-game losing streak of the year, until its resilient senior trio picked up the slack to force overtime -- and a second extra session wherein the defense that has gained recognition as the weeks and months have passed -- and ultimately prevail, defeating Towson in a gritty, and at times, not aesthetically pleasing, 91-82 double-overtime battle in the penultimate home game of the regular season.
"There were a lot of reasons why we could have lost, or should have lost, but we didn't," head coach Joe Mihalich remarked as Hofstra (23-5, 13-2 CAA) remained undefeated on its home floor and enabled the possibility of clinching no worse than a share of the CAA's regular season championship Saturday afternoon against James Madison. "At the end of the day, it's about walking off the floor and getting that W."
"We started off slow and we dug ourselves a hole," said Justin Wright-Foreman, Hofstra's leading scorer with 28 points, and one of five Pride players who tallied 11 markers or more. "But this team is full of fighters and we just want to win at all costs, and the dog just came out of all of us, whether it was me, Jacquil (Taylor), Desure (Buie), or Elijah (Pemberton)."
As the season has evolved, so too has Hofstra's ability to win in different ways. The Pride has shown it can be a dominant force on many occasions, as evidenced in the CAA-opening demolition of Delaware and the aforementioned Elon game on February 7. It has also come back to win convincingly with strong second-half showings against the likes of Drexel, UNCW and Charleston, as well as having proven it can outgun high-octane offenses such as William & Mary -- and the second Charleston game on the road last week -- to get the job done. Then, there is the specter of Wright-Foreman and his virtuoso scoring ability, which carried Hofstra to the finish line against William & Mary to the tune of a school-record 48 points, not to mention his unforgettable buzzer-beater to defeat Northeastern last month. But Hofstra has also won without Wright-Foreman's best game, and on Thursday, despite his team-high point total, it was the supporting cast which turned out to be most critical.
Desure Buie, Wright-Foreman's backcourt partner who celebrated his 22nd birthday with a 16-point, nine-assist effort, spearheaded the comeback with a steal that led to a Wright-Foreman three-pointer, then scored the final four points of regulation to force the first of two overtimes, a sequence that did not go unnoticed by his running mate.
"There's not much more you could say about that," Wright-Foreman said of Buie and his two-way play in the second half and both overtime periods. "His steal, his leadership -- everything -- it just was incredible."
Jalen Ray came off the bench to drain five threes en route to 17 points, second only to Wright-Foreman in a showing that underscored his X-factor qualities that first arrived on the scene last year, when the then-freshman sank an improbable game-winning shot at Monmouth.
"He made shots when we needed him," Mihalich said. "He was our best perimeter defender, he had five rebounds, he had five assists, no turnovers, and he made five threes. We haven't really studied this, but there are a lot of good sixth men in the league, and he's as good of a sixth man as there is in the league."
Finally, on a night where Wright-Foreman and Eli Pemberton demonstrated their warrior tendencies by playing full 50-minute games, there was Jacquil Taylor, the rim protector the Pride had been missing the past two years, with all due respect to Rokas Gustys and his rebounding prowess. With 14 points, 17 rebounds, and seven blocked shots, the graduate transfer from Purdue continued to indicate his value, and it was his charge and subsequent basket to start the second overtime that gave Hofstra a lead it would never relinquish.
"It just shows a true testament to all our characters," Taylor said of the team impact of Thursday's win. "We just want to win at the end of the day. We just found a way to win. It wasn't pretty, like we all said, but a win's a win."
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