March Madness: Hofstra returns home to Long Island full of confidence ahead of NCAA Tournament

Standing in the lobby of the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex, after the bus was escorted by two public safety SUVs, after being greeted by delirious students and employees and alumni, after Queen’s “We Are The Champions” had stopped playing over the loudspeaker, coach Speedy Claxton became philosophical.

About the opportunity the NCAA Tournament could impart for Hofstra. About what it could mean. For the men’s basketball program. And for the school.

“It means everything,” Claxton told Newsday Wednesday afternoon after the Coastal Athletic Association men’s basketball champions returned from Washington, D.C., with the trophy in hand and a guaranteed spot in the field of 68 tournament which begins next week.

“Hopefully it’ll boost enrollment. It’ll give some notoriety to the university,” Claxton said. “This is national recognition. We’re going to be on a big stage.”

It is an inarguable statement.

Because when the first round commences next Thursday, the nation will be introduced to Hofstra in the form of the Pride. A team that finished the season with a 24-10 record and seven straight wins. And possesses attributes that Claxton values: toughness and competitiveness.

“Midway through June I was like, ‘OK, we could probably be good,’ ” Claxton said, in response to questions about the toughness and competitiveness he saw in his players during summer workouts. “Once the season started and I saw that competitive level from practice translate to the game [I thought] this group could be special.”

Hofstra began the season with a 9-2 mark, which included wins over ACC programs Pittsburgh and Syracuse. And, to hear CAA Player of the Year Cruz Davis, those wins imbued the Pride with an unshakable amount of belief.

“Early in the season we realized we were a good team,” Davis said. “We beat two ACC teams so just having that under our belt, it gave us a lot of confidence early on in the season and] it just kept our confidence going throughout the whole season.”

That conviction came to the forefront in mid-to-late January when the Pride dropped five straight conference games.

Adversity reveals character. It wouldn’t have been the first time in team sports history that a losing streak ended a season prematurely. Hofstra could have collapsed.

Instead, the Pride won 11 out of their last 12 games and will be a participant in the tournament for the first time since the 2000-01 season.

“We just kept confidence in ourselves,” Davis said. “We knew we were still a good team. We were just going through some injuries at [the] time. As soon as we got one person back, someone else would get injured. We need everybody on our team. Everybody plays a specific role that we need and everybody helps us win.”

Need proof? Look at the CAA Tournament.

Davis torched William & Mary for 30 points in 30 minutes, and the Pride routed the Tribe, 91-61. Following that game, Davis totaled 30 points in the 68-65 overtime win over Towson in the conference semifinals and the 75-69 win over Monmouth in Tuesday night’s championship game.

With Davis somewhat neutralized, his backcourt mate Preston Edmead stepped up.

The CAA Rookie of the Year from Deer Park scored 22 points in 45 minutes against the Tigers, including the game-winning three with three-tenths of a second left in overtime, and had a 26-point performance against the Hawks.

As a result, he won the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award and was named to the All-Tournament team.

“It means so much,” Edmead said.

It is a sentiment shared by German Plotnikov, the senior swingman from Belarus. In the NIL-and-transfer portal era, Plotnikov played four seasons at Hofstra and was a part of the 2022-23 team that lost in the second round of the NIT.

And in a week, he will compete in the NCAA Tournament.

As such, he was asked, what aspect of the Big Dance is he most looking forward to experiencing?

“Why not us making [a] run,” Plotnikov said while referencing Saint Peter’s advancing to the Elite Eight in 2022. “It’s funny. Before every game we have, [reserve swingman] Biggie Patterson texts in our group chat, ‘Why not us?’ This kind of situation, why [can we] not go and make a couple upsets and make it big in the tournament?”

So, yes, the Pride know the opportunity that awaits them.

But, at the same time, they recognize what they have accomplished by being the first Hofstra team in a quarter century to get this far.

“It means we’re legends,” Davis said. “We’re going to go down in history.”