March Madness: Hofstra falls to Alabama in first round of the NCAA Tournament
TAMPA, Fla. — Hofstra waited 25 years to play a game in the NCAA Tournament. It will continue to wait for its first win there.
The 13th-seeded Pride fell to No. 4 Alabama, 90-70, in a first-round game at Benchmark International Arena on Friday afternoon. Deer Park’s Preston Edmead scored 24 points and Cruz Davis added 14 as Hofstra fell to 24-11. German Plotnikov, a grad student in his final game for Hofstra, scored 12.
Labaron Philon Jr. had 29 points for Alabama (24-9), which will face No. 5 Texas Tech in the second round on Sunday.
This was Hofstra’s fifth game in the NCAA Tournament as a Division I program. It previously reached the brackets in 1976, 1977, 2000 and 2001. It also qualified for the tournament in 2020, but that event was canceled because of COVID.
Hofstra went ahead by 10 midway through the first half when a three-pointer by Joshua Aaron Reaves capped a 16-2 run that made it 28-18. Alabama turned the momentum and took a 37-35 lead into halftime.
Hofstra cut Alabama’s lead to 67-62 when Edmead hit a three-pointer and closed to five again when Davis hit a layup that made it 71-66 with just under five minutes left. Alabama closed out the game on a 19-4 run.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
