Monmouth comes back from down 12 at halftime to vanquish Hofstra

Xander Rice’s 31 points led Monmouth as Hawks erased 12-point halftime deficit to defeat Hofstra Saturday. (Photo by Monmouth Athletics)

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. — With his Monmouth team down by a dozen after 20 minutes of Hofstra seemingly scoring at will, King Rice changed his combination to a more physical look for the second stanza.

The Hawks had fallen victim yet again to a Pride team that spaced the floor and got virtually every ball to bounce its way when Tyler Thomas was not merely splashing it into the net. Rice’s goal was to simply get Hofstra to work on the defensive end with a smaller, yet more physical lineup that featured Jaret Valencia and Cornelius Robinson as a tandem up front.

The change in tactics proved successful.

Even after Hofstra retained its double-digit lead four minutes into the final frame, Monmouth stormed back with a 25-11 run to ultimately take the lead and then hold serve down the stretch to secure an 81-78 home victory over the Pride at the OceanFirst Bank Center.

The win, which saw Rice’s son, Xander, get the better of Thomas to the tune of 31 points on the afternoon, was the 200th in the long career of the elder Rice, the first head coach in program history to attain all his triumphs at the Division I level.

“They were just outplaying us,” King Rice said of Hofstra. “They’d beaten us about nine times in a row and they never run their plays. All they do is space us out and say we can’t guard them. They killed us in the first half, and we’re better than that defensively. They just took advantage of our schemes on defense, then my guys went out there and we changed the lineup so we could switch more.”

“It just gave us enough confidence to get some things going. Then Xander hits a couple, we start hitting stuff, and now we’re a hard team to guard too. I think it truly helped our team tonight.”

The Hawks (11-10, 4-4 CAA) got into a track meet in the opening minutes as Hofstra relied on Thomas and Dstone Dubar to once again lead the way behind a torrid 11-for-17 performance from long distance. The scorching display would vanish coming out of the locker room, however, as the new-look Monmouth defense forced the visitors away from their team dynamic and into careless mistakes that Speedy Claxton would later lament.

“We were moving the ball, we were sharing it, whoever had an open shot took an open shot,” he reflected. “We were playing team basketball and just got bogged down in the second half, just kind of went one-on-one.”

“It really came down to us missing free throws, our live ball turnovers and their second chance points. They had 19 points off our turnovers and 22 second chance points. It’s going to be hard to win games when you have to deal with that.”

Still, Hofstra (11-10, 4-4 CAA) had a chance to reclaim the lead in the final minutes of regulation. Threes from Dubar and Thomas, after the Pride missed seven of its first eight attempts from behind the line in the second half, helped knot the score at 78 as Monmouth called a timeout to set up a game-winning shot. With Jakari Spence holding the ball in the open floor and milking the clock, he dished to Xander Rice for a triple attempt in front of the Hawks’ bench. The fifth-year senior was fouled by Bryce Washington as the shot went off, the fourth such infraction committed by Hofstra on the day, then calmly sank all three of his ensuing free throws to provide the final margin.

“I was really just trying to think about getting the last shot,” the younger Rice recalled. “When they have scorers like they do, with Thomas and (Jaquan) Carlos and (Dubar), you don’t want to give them any time to get anything off. We ran an iso play and I was just focusing on getting the ball and holding it as long as I could, then jumping up and shooting my shot. And luckily, there was a foul.”

“I really don’t think it was (Monmouth),” Claxton reiterated with regard to what got his own side off kilter. I think it was more us (with) what we didn’t do. We might have fouled a 3-point shooter four or five times throughout the course of the game, and when your whole game plan is to stop their best player in Rice and he still ends up having 31, that just can’t happen.”

The Monmouth victory snaps a string of four losses in the Hawks’ last five contests. When asked if today’s result was a pick-me-up of sorts, King Rice hoped for the best, but as he usually does, took accountability for prior missteps while also ensuring his team will be one that helps dictate the fate of the rest of the season.

“I’m hoping that it’ll give our guys a lot of confidence,” he said. “I’ve gotta do a better job with my young guys and not just be so hard on them, because they’re so talented. I hope it gives Alexander confidence to know that he can lead our team to a comeback victory. He’s still building, too. This is a new role for him. As his coach, it’s just fun to see him out there competing.”

“Guys just gotta keep believing, and this is still a new league for us. We got picked 11th, so everybody thought we were the bottom tier. We’re gonna be in the next tier, knocking on the door trying to get up in that first group, hopefully by the end of this season.”