Hofstra falters down the stretch once again in loss at Iona
"My team fought out there," coach Speedy Claxton said of his Hofstra squad, which lost at Iona on Tuesday night. Here he's on the sidelines against Houston on Nov. 9, 2021 in Houston. Credit: Getty Images/Bob Levey
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — One can tell the results are going to come. It just hasn’t happened yet.
Hofstra let a huge opportunity get away in its season opener when 15th-ranked Houston beat it in overtime. Tuesday night’s loss to Rick Pitino’s Iona Gaels has to be looked on as another one that got away.
The Pride got off to a poor start and was the better team on the floor for many stretches as it got back into the game and even tied the score twice. But it wasn’t the better team in the final four minutes as Iona got a little momentum from a pair of Tyson Jolly dunks and kept the Pride down in handing them an 82-74 non-conference loss at Hynes Center.
"This was a winnable game," Pride coach Speedy Claxton said. "We already know that we should have won at Houston. But we're going to peak at the right time. It's still early in the year. I'm not worried about these guys.
"There’s a lot of new faces in that locker room and it's going to take time to build that chemistry," Claxton added. "We will be fine. Mark my words. We will be fine."
Hofstra’s top returning player Jalen Ray made his season debut after missing the first two games because of a minor team rules infraction and a tweaked ankle. He made an instant impact. He had a team-high 20 points, was 6-for-8 on three-point attempts and was on the floor during the Pride’s best stretches.
"It felt good being back out there," Ray said.
Darlinstone Dubar had 14 points, Aaron Estrada had 11 points and Zach Cooks had 11 points though he was limited to 4-for-17 shooting for Hofstra (1-2).
"So far, this is my favorite win," Pitino said. "I'm scouting them and Cooks is averaging 27.5 points," Pitino said. "We wanted to wear out Cooks so we pressed. I haven’t pressed for a whole game in a long time. But we didn’t want Cooks to have his legs to shoot at the end of the game."
Jolly had 21 points and Dylan van Eyck and Nelly Junior Joseph added 12 points apiece for Iona (3-0).
Iona has all the trimmings of a typical Pitino team. The Long Islander has instilled the withering press that his teams are known for and the Gaels like to run and shoot the three-pointer. They are both long and fast. But Pitino called these Gaels "maybe the best attitude team I’ve had."
Of Hofstra, Pitino said "I’ll be shocked if they don’t win 22 or 23 games."
Hofstra did itself no favors by missing nine of its first 10 shots as it fell into a 14-2 hole.
"They came to play," Claxton said of Iona. "We spotted them a pretty good lead to start the game and that was pretty much hard to overcome. We eventually picked it up but that was tough to come back from."
Hofstra cut the margin to three points on three occasions before going into halftime down 39-32 after Ray’s last-instant three-pointer was taken off the board on a video review.
Ray had 11 points in a 17-6 second-half run that knotted the score at 55 with 10:45 to play. But the Pride would never get the lead. It tied the score two more times, last at 62 with 7:21 left as Cooks hit both ends of a one-and-one.
Jolly had seven points in the last seven minutes, including the dunks, to help seal it.
"My team fought out there," Claxton said. "A couple of 50-50 balls and a couple of key late turnovers and that was the ballgame. . . . but I’m not worried about it. This is going to make us better come January, February and March."
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
