Hofstra’s defense surging at opportune time as Pride picks off UNCW

TJ Gadsden (1) and Silas Sunday (33) double-team UNCW’s Harlan Obioha. In last three games, Hofstra has held opposing teams to 55.7 points per game and just 23 percent shooting from 3-point range. (Photo by Lee Weissman/Hofstra Athletics)

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Nine days ago, Hofstra started the new year on the short end of an 18-point loss to a William & Mary team that simply outplayed the Pride in every facet of the January 2 encounter between the two programs.

Since then, Hofstra has gone back to basics, relying on the defense that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle when assessing how consistent the Pride has been for the majority of the past decade under both Speedy Claxton and his predecessor, Joe Mihalich.

Hofstra resoundingly turned the page last Saturday in its first action since the William & Mary loss, holding Northeastern to just 37 points while winning by the same 18-point margin it had fallen victim to less than 48 hours prior. This past Thursday, the Pride held a halftime lead against reigning CAA champion and league favorite Charleston, yet fell six points short as the Cougars were taken to the limit. On this day, against a UNCW team that got 30 points from Donovan Newby, Hofstra replicated the same effort of the previous two games, fending off the Seahawks in a gritty 66-63 decision that assistant coach Mike DePaoli insisted the Pride earned every second of.

“The defense is a foundation of our program,” DePaoli—filling in on the bench for Claxton, who missed Saturday’s game for personal reasons—said. “Defense is what allows you to win games, offense determines how much you win them by. As coaches, good teams are led by coaches, great teams are player-led. What allows us to defend is these guys taking ownership in it.”

“It’s getting to the point now where we don’t even need to say anything and they’re holding each other accountable. The energy has been off the charts in practice. We’d lost four of five, and if you come to our practice, you wouldn’t know that. When they take it over, that’s what brings the defense to life. These guys have really bought into making that our DNA.”

Since the William & Mary game—where the visiting Tribe buried 12 three-pointers and shot over 52 percent from the floor—Hofstra has put each of its last three opponents in the proverbial vise, particularly from beyond the arc. Against Northeastern, the Pride held the Huskies to 21 percent shooting on the day and 3-for-25 from deep. Even in the win Thursday, Charleston connected on just five of its 23 three-point attempts. UNCW shot a respectable 10-for-30 from 3-point range Saturday, but if Newby’s 8-for-14 performance is isolated, the rest of the Seahawks missed 14 of 16 from behind the line. When asked if the win Saturday would instill more confidence in a Hofstra team entering a stretch where four of its next six games will be played away from home, DePaoli was candid in his response, wishing the outcome could be a pick-me-up of sorts.

“I hope a lot, because these guys should feel really good about themselves,” he said. “We have shown resolve this year. You look at some games that have went to overtime this year, we’ve had resolve, we’ve had good response. We lose a tough one the other night to Charleston, we felt like we could have won the game. If you were at our walkthrough (Friday), you would have thought we won the game. And that’s it. As long as you can have those types of responses, you put yourself in this kind of position.”

“We want these guys to be confident. Speedy talks about that a lot. We want them offensively to be confident in who they are as players. (Speedy) lets talent be talent and he really gives them a lot of life to believe in themselves.”

Two years ago this month, it was a defensive masterpiece against UNCW that started Hofstra’s run to a regular season CAA championship. The Pride limited the Seahawks to just 16 second-half points in 2023 en route to a 70-46 victory on that 2023 night on Long Island. The stranglehold has not been as profound in this recent stretch, but Hofstra has rendered its opposition to less than 56 points per game in the past week and two days, reinforcing the message that the victory does not have to be gaudy or glamorous, but merely existent.

“We talk to our guys all the time about gritty, not pretty,” DePaoli said. “Defensively, we gotta roll up our sleeves and be ready to get gritty. We’re not gonna be perfect, but we’re after perfect effort, and I thought for the most part tonight, we were pretty good. Hopefully it can reaffirm everything that we’re about.”