Delaware Rallies Past Hofstra, Moves Closer to First CAA Title

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y -- While the Delaware Blue Hens and Hofstra Pride are going in opposite directions, the latter of those squads, true to its team nickname, showed a lot of pride before ultimately succumbing to the best team in the Colonial Athletic Association.

Eighth-place Hofstra (8-20, 4-9 CAA), picked to finish last in the nine-team CAA, surprisingly built a 40-25 lead, with 2:36 left in the opening half on first-place Delaware (20-8, 12-1 CAA). But the Blue Hens closed the game, 56-37, and held on for an 81-77 win at the Mack Sports Complex on Wednesday night.

“I thought it was a heck of a college basketball game, I really did,” said head coach Joe Mihalich, in defeat. “I’m really proud of our guys. It’s the team that was picked ninth… and they’re in first place now. We had our chances.”

It took a dozen games for Delaware to lose its first league game of the season on Saturday, at second-place Towson (9-3), and the Blue Hens simply weren’t ready to start their first conference losing streak of the year.

While Hofstra, in its first under Mihalich, clinched its third straight 20-loss campaign, Delaware moved a comfortable 2½ games ahead of Towson, which has four CAA regular season games left -- one more than the Blue Hens, who are trying to win their first CAA title since joining the league with the Pride a dozen years ago.

Prior to that, Delaware and Hofstra were bitter rivals in the America East Conference, where the Blue Hens won three regular season and four conference tournament titles (between 1992 and 1999) before Hofstra captured its only regular season and America East tournament championships in each of the following two seasons.

Although Delaware only closed the overall series gap to 48-30 in favor of the Pride, the Blue Hens have won the past seven meetings between the schools.

This time, it was on the strength almost exclusively of their four double digit scorers -- senior guard Davon Usher (game-high 27 points), senior guard Devon Saddler (24 points), junior guard Kyle Anderson (18 points) and senior forward Carl Baptiste (10 points, game-bests of 13 rebounds and four blocks) -- who accounted for all but two of Delaware’s points. Saddler also had the rare feat of recording every one of his team’s seven assists.

 

Meanwhile, Hofstra‘s two best players (each graduate students), forward Zeke Upshaw (26 points) and point guard Dion Nesmith (22 points), were the only two players to score in double figures for the Pride.

Each team made 27 field goal attempts with Hofstra attempting only one more (66-65), but after a fairly even whistle in the opening half, Delaware had a sizeable advantage at the free throw line (going 13-for-23 to Hofstra’s 3-for-7) in the second half, much to the chagrin of the home crowd.

He wouldn’t outright agree with that sentiment, but Mihalich subtlety hinted at the calls going the Blue Hens’ way, saying, “I guess we were fouling them more than they fouled us. You can read into that all you want.”

Another Delaware edge was self-made, when the Blue Hens fought back into the game with some full court pressure.

After Delaware missed its first eight shots, and Hofstra scored seven straight points to lead, 7-1, the Pride surged ahead, 21-7, and then by 15 points, until the Blue Hens resorted to some full court pressure to answer with seven straight points of their own.

That run stabilized the game for Delaware and brought the Blue Hens to within 40-32, before they trailed 41-32 at intermission.

“It was clearly one of the reasons we didn’t win this game,” Mihlaich said. “We didn’t handle the pressure in the first half. The foul trouble played into too… we had a couple ballhandlers on the bench and they knew to press us and they did, and we didn’t handle it.”

As it has so often for a depth-challenged roster, fatigue also seemed to play a role for a Hofstra team that led at halftime for the 15th time this season with barely more than half that many wins to show for those leads.

“We play eight guys and really it’s six guys getting [most of] the minutes,” Mihalich said. “So the second half rolls around, we get a little weary out there.”

Upshaw though, was the only Pride player to play the entire game, compared to three (Usher, Saddler and Anderson) who did the same for Delaware, which likewise had only six players getting the bulk of its team’s minutes.

And Usher (16 second-half points), Saddler (13) and Anderson (13) each scored more after halftime than before that point.

Especially Anderson, as the second half began. Making his first four shots of the half (after going just 1-for-6 in the first half), Anderson scored 10 points during a 16-8 run that pulled the Blue Hens to within 49-48.

Nesmith (who scored 17 points in the second half), had five points to key a 10-3 spurt that pushed the lead to 59-51.

On that idea of being winded in the second halves of games, Nesmith said, “We’ve been doing this all season so we’re kind of used to it.”

What Nesmith doesn’t get used to though, is losing, even when he plays well. “We’ve lost 20 times this year and every time, it gets harder and harder to lose.  The way I played doesn’t mean anything if we don’t win.”

Adding to that, Upshaw, who had 18 points (on 6-of-10 shooting) in the first half, but only one-third of that (on 3-of-8 shooting) afterwards, admitted, “I felt I could have made some shots for my team down the stretch.“

Seven points by Usher during a 15-6 run gave the Blue Hens their second lead (and first since 1-0), at 66-65, before Upshaw and Usher traded 3-pointers.

Those types of shots even out greatly after a decided edge for Hofstra early. The Pride made seven of its first 11 3-point attempts before missing its final three of the first half, and then making five of 14 in the second half. Delaware, on the other hand, missed 12 of 13 first-half shots from behind the arc before going 4-for-7 from that distance in the second half.

A trey by Nesmith put Hofstra up for a final time, 73-71, with 3:49 left, but layups by Baptiste and Saddler moved the Blue Hens on top, 75-73, just before Upshaw tied the game, 75-75, on a jumper with 2:06 remaining.

Saddler was then blocked by junior center Moussa Kone six points, team-bests of six rebounds and two blocks), but he gathered the ball back in and scored in the paint to put Delaware ahead for good, 77-75, with 47.8 seconds to go.

Missed 3s by Upshaw and Nesmith and a missed jumper by Nesmith on the next trip led to a foul and a pair of free throws by Anderson to extend the margin to 79-75, and two more free throws by Baptiste made it 81-75 in the final seconds, prior to Nesmith scoring on a meaningless layup.

Whereas the result wasn’t what Hofstra was looking for, it could serve as a confidence booster as the CAA gets closer to its conference tournament in Baltimore, March 7-10.

“I truly believe we could beat anybody in this league,” Mihalich said. “I tell [my players] that all the time… we’ve been right there with everybody… we ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Hoping to start another winning streak, the Blue Hens will visit fourth-place Drexel as Hofstra hosts Towson on Saturday.