Six years later, Joe Mihalich finally gets his NCAA Tournament experience with Hofstra

Six years after his NCAA Tournament experience was taken from him, Joe Mihalich will get to live the moment with Hofstra as a special guest of athletic director Rick Cole. (Photo by Rafael Suanes/CAA)

The fallout of the 2020 NCAA Tournament and its subsequent cancellation is still a sensitive subject for Joe Mihalich.

The beloved coach was set to lead Hofstra back into March Madness for the first time since 2001, having won the Colonial Athletic Association tournament championship on March 10, 2020 when the Pride defeated Northeastern. Less than 48 hours later, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down not only the entire NCAA Tournament, but the sports world as a whole.

It would turn out to be the last game Mihalich ever coached.

Later that summer, the coach suffered a life-threatening stroke that forced him off the sidelines. He survived, and although he continues to recover six years later, his enthusiasm is still very much alive for the program he called his own for seven years.

“Someone said, ‘we did it for the people before us,’ Mihalich said Wednesday after traveling with the Hofstra team to Tampa, where the Pride will face Alabama in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. “Richie Laurel, Speedy Claxton, and the 2020 team. We did it for the people.”

So beloved is Mihalich to this day within the Hofstra community that athletic director Rick Cole did not even think twice about offering the former coach a chance to enjoy the moment he was deprived of in 2020. Immediately after Hofstra won the CAA tournament last week, Cole called Mihalich from his courtside seat, extending an invitation for him to join the team’s travel party, which was accepted in fairly short order.

“It was an incredible gesture,” Mihalich’s wife, Mary, said of Cole’s generosity. “We’re so grateful and so excited, and so happy for Speedy and all of them. We’re really enjoying it. I think we’re carrying those 14 kids from 2020 in our heart.”

Now a special assistant at La Salle, where he has been for the past several years under Fran Dunphy and now, Darris Nichols, Mihalich had a chance to observe Hofstra up close when the two teams met in the Cathedral Classic on Thanksgiving weekend at The Palestra. He has since watched Speedy Claxton, a former assistant of his, further develop the Pride over the course of the year, and raved about his ability to get Hofstra back to the national stage.

“He is so good,” Mihalich said of Claxton. “Oh, man, he is so good. I don’t know what to say, but he has it. He worked for me for seven years and Speedy’s wired as a hardworking guy. He works so hard, and he has a wonderful way with the players.”

As someone with NCAA Tournament experience of his own, having led Niagara to the dance twice in the 2000s, Mihalich may be someone else that Hofstra uses as a source of inspiration and sounding board, but the coach declined to share exactly what he might say to Claxton’s group. He was, however, effusive in his praise for keeping the program intact and bringing it back to where it was destined to be six years ago.

“It’s a shame that they couldn’t be here,” Mihalich said of the 2020 team. “But I am so happy for Speedy and Rick, and (sports information director) Stephen (Gorchov). They made me proud.”