W&M men’s basketball can’t handle Hofstra in 86-80 loss

Coming in, William and Mary coach Tony Shaver said Hofstra had the best talent in the Colonial Athletic Association. The Pride certainly looked the part Thursday night, and the Tribe had no answer on the defensive end.

Running the old-fashioned pick-and-roll to perfection, Hofstra got 25 of its 34 baskets in the paint and secured a much-needed 86-80 win at Kaplan Arena. The Pride shot 59 percent from the field in the second half, which was enough to end its two-game skid and snap the Tribe’s streak of four wins.

Rokas Gustys, 6-foot-9 and 260 pounds, had 25 points on 12-of-16 shooting, along with 15 rebounds. Juan’ya Green finished with 13 points and 12 assists, five of which went to Gustys for layups.

“I’m telling you, they’re lethal offensively,” Shaver said. “Just so talented. When you score 80 points, you put yourself in position to win. But we weren’t good enough defensively to stop them.

“They’re a better team than we are right now. We weren’t good enough to win that ballgame tonight, especially defensively.”

The Tribe (17-7, 9-4 CAA) was done in by a 12-possession stretch midway through the second half. Hofstra scored at least two points on 11 of those trips, and four times it came away with three (twice from the arc, twice the old-fashioned way). Nine of the 11 baskets were around the rim.

Ahead 55-54 with 12 1/2 minutes left, the Pride (17-8, 9-4) extended its lead to 81-68 with 5:57 left. From there, the Tribe scored 10 straight points to make a game of it. But the damage had been done.

“We scored enough points, that wasn’t the problem,” guard David Cohn said. “We just didn’t get enough stops. We did at the end, but we’ve got to have that from the start. We can’t have those streaks where they score 10 points in a minute.”

“Defensively,” added forward Omar Prewitt, “we just didn’t show up tonight.”

Though it scored 80 points, W&M wasn’t its usual efficient self. The Tribe shot 44.6 percent from the floor, six points below its percentage in CAA games coming in. Prewitt, Cohn and reserve Hunter Seacat were a combined 18 of 30 from the field. Daniel Dixon, Terry Tarpey and Greg Malinowski were 6 of 25.

With the loss, W&M fell into a three-way tie with Hofstra and James Madison for second place. They are two games behind UNC Wilmington with five left. Then it’s the tournament, where W&M might meet the Pride again.

“We’re not good enough today to beat them, and we have three weeks to get there,” Shaver said. “I think we will.”

Johnson can be reached by 757-247-4649.