March Madness: Hofstra, seeded 13th, draws No. 4 seed Alabama in Midwest Regional
Hofstra players react as their NCAA Tournament first-round matchup is announced during Selection Sunday at Hofstra on Sunday. Credit: Jeff Bachner
In the moments after Hofstra’s future in this year’s NCAA Tournament was announced on Sunday, coach Speedy Claxton admitted he didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about his first-round opponent, Alabama.
He had a general sense of the Crimson Tide’s game — quick, fast-paced and high-scoring — and he knows that they have been a program on the rise for the last few years. He also certainly knows the shared history between the two schools; Aaron Estrada, a two-time CAA Player of the Year for Hofstra, transferred to Alabama in 2023 for his final season of eligibility.
Beyond that, though, Claxton said he and his staff would have to start digging into the film of the Tide’s recent contests to get a better picture of what they do and how they do it.
But Claxton knows the other team in the matchup very intimately. It’s his own. He has watched them all season. He led them to a conference championship last week. So despite his superficial acumen regarding the opponent, he had no problem saying this in regard to Friday’s matchup in Tampa:
“We expect to win the game.”
He probably would have said that no matter whom the Pride were slotted to face. It just so happens that Hofstra (24-10) earned the 13 seed in the Midwest Regional and will play No. 4 seed Alabama (23-9).
It will be Hofstra’s first NCAA Tournament game in 25 years, although the Pride did secure a bid in 2020 before the pandemic canceled the tournament.
A few hundred fans, boosters and season-ticket holders assembled in the campus’ student center to watch the selection show with the team. The feeling among them very much echoed Claxton’s appraisal. So many times the Pride have come up short in situations similar to the ones they have faced this season, had calls go against them in key moments or had opponents hit miraculous shots to break their hearts. Besides the 2020 team that was denied an earned tournament appearance, there also was the 2006 team that felt it deserved an at-large bid instead of George Mason, the nationally ranked team it beat in its conference semifinal. The selection committee thought otherwise.
Even the 2000 appearance, in which Hofstra lost to Oklahoma State by 20 in the first round, was the result of some unfortunate happenstance. Claxton, the team’s best player, missed a large part of the first half after suffering a hand injury early in the game.
“I truly believe if I didn’t dislocate my pinkie, we would have given them a run for their money,” Claxton said.
Hofstra lost to UCLA by 13 the following year in its most recent tournament game.
This season, though, it’s been Hofstra that has been capitalizing on, rather than getting crushed by, twists of luck.
Just last week, the top two seeds in the CAA Tournament, Charleston and UNC Wilmington, lost in the quarterfinal round to open the door for Hofstra. In the semifinal against Towson, freshman Preston Edmead of Deer Park hit the epic game-winning three-pointer with three-tenths of a second left in overtime, the kind of shot the Pride have seen other teams make against them. And in the final against Monmouth, there were any number of calls that helped Hofstra win.
All of that adds up to this.
“We deserve to be here,” longtime Hofstra assistant coach Tom Parrotta, making his first NCAA Tournament appearance after more than 30 years as a college player and coach, said of this squad. “This is our year.”
And now it continues.
“This team is just special,” Claxton said. “There is just something about this team. I don’t exactly know what it is, but hopefully after the season I can sit down and put my finger on it. But no matter who we play, they believe that we can win the game. That’s important. I don’t think this is any different. They’re going to go out and compete. We’re not just going to be happy to be there. We’re going to compete and we expect to win.”
It would be the first Division I NCAA Tournament win for the school.
Claxton isn’t limiting his visions to that achievement, though. There have been plenty of recent mid-majors who have made runs to the Sweet 16 and beyond since the chalkier days when Claxton played for Hofstra, and the little guys rarely gave the big guys much trouble.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens,” he said. “This team is extremely special. They aren’t going to be scared of Alabama, they aren’t going to back down. I’m telling you guys this now, they expect to win this game. We expect to win this game.”
The Pride may be in a better position to do that than any previous Hofstra tournament team, thanks to the guard combination of CAA Player of the Year Cruz Davis and CAA Rookie of the Year (and CAA Tournament MVP) Edmead.
“This game is gonna be fun,” Davis said.
This week has been fun for the team, too. A lot of celebrating. A lot of resting up. A lot of thinking about what is still in front of them.
Now they know at least a little bit of that last part.
“It’s a weird feeling when you are so happy but you don’t know who you are playing,” senior forward German Plotnikov said. “So it’s nice to have all those uncertainties out of the way and we can finally go get ready to play. It’s back to business.”
This is the sixth time Hofstra has qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The team earned an automatic berth to the 2020 tournament by winning the CAA conference tournament, but that year's NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the pandemic. The Pride are still looking for their first tournament win.
Year Round Opponent Result
1976 Reg. Quarters UConn L, 80-78 (OT)
1977 Reg. Quarter Notre Dame L, 90-83
2000 First round Oklahoma St. L, 86-66
2001 First round UCLA L, 61-48
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.
