BALTIMORE — Tournament basketball dictates brief celebrations after wins. Hofstra’s might have been even shorter than usual.
The fifth-seeded Pride dispatched No. 4 James Madison 74-57 Saturday with one of its best overall performances of the season in the CAA tournament quarterfinals. Hofstra almost immediately turned its attention to William and Mary, Sunday’s semifinal opponent.
Hofstra (20-12) lost both games to the Tribe during the regular season – a 100-79 crunch job on Jan. 28 in Williamsburg, and an 80-78 defeat on Long Island on Feb. 22.
Asked about competing against W&M, Hofstra coach Joe Mihalich said, “I wish I could say there was one thing. They’re a very good team. There’s a lot of things we have to do. How much time we got?”
“Hopefully, we’ll play better than we played down there. And hopefully, we can make a couple more plays at the end of the game than we did at our place.”
Marcus Thornton scored 24 points and William and Mary shot 65 percent from the field in the win in Williamsburg. Thornton scored 23 and Terry Tarpey 21 as the Tribe weathered five Hofstra double-figure scorers in the second game.
“We just failed to do some of the things we wanted to do down the stretch,” Pride forward Moussa Kone said, “which is something that we tried to get better at after that game. We just need to be aggressive.”
Kone embodied the aggressiveness Saturday versus JMU. He finished with a double-double (18 points, 11 rebounds), his third of the season. He scored just two points in the Pride’s most recent loss to W&M and just six points in Hofstra’s 82-73 loss at James Madison to close the regular season.
Point guard Juan’ya Green ably directed traffic with 10 points and eight assists. Ameen Tanksley added 16 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals.
Hofstra’s primary improvement was on the defensive end. One week after the Dukes shot 62 percent from the field and 58 percent from 3-point range, the Pride limited JMU to 37 percent overall and just 5 of 22 from 3-point range.
“Our battle cry all week was, we had to be a better defensive team,” Mihalich said. “I thought we were today. Our toughness showed through. We haven’t been tough every game this year. That’s on me. But we certainly were tough when it counted.”
Hofstra took the lead with a 12-0 run in the first half for a 27-20 cushion. The Pride led by six at the half, quickly extended the margin to double figures in the second half, and was up by no fewer than eight the remainder of the game.
