The Hofstra Pride entered UBS Arena with a fighting spirit, but every punch they threw was thrown right back at them in the 84-79 loss against St. John's.
"Proud of my guys, thought we came out there and played hard," said Hofstra head coach Speedy Claxton. "Proud of our effort, we fell a little short; we were undermanned today, Jacco Fritz was out, so we had to play small."
"We played well; they played great," Pitino said. "And we knew this was coming… We told the guys before the game that they're gonna try to mismatches on every single play because [I] played them two times."
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino saw this pitch coming in slow, though. Tyler Thomas and Darlinstone Dubar lead the floor with 24 and 23 points respectively, giving the Red Storm a hard time.
"Dubar killed us last year, and he makes tough shots," Pitino said. "We were in his face on almost all of them."
Two big-time contributors were Jaquan Carlos, who added 10 points on top of his usual four assists, freshman KiJan Robinson's eight points, largely on 2-5 shooting from deep, and German Plotnikov's nearly 17 minutes on the court.
"German gave us great minutes off the bench," Claxton said, of the 6'6" senior who poured in seven points before fouling out of the game. "He was fantastic all night, we had in him a point-center… super proud of him."
Without their usual center out, the Pride debuted Silas Sunday as part of their starting five, who four points in just under 13 minutes.
"I guess it kinda cost us on the boards in the second half, but proud of the effort," Claxton said.
Leading 36-32 at the half, courtesy of Daniss Jenkins' facilitating and Jordan Dingle's team-leading eight points, but it was fouls that spelled out trouble for the Blue & Gold. 11 minutes left in the second half and Thomas was in serious foul trouble, picking up his fourth du jour.
"[Thomas] is our go-to guy, along with D-Stone," Claxton said. "To only one of them out there, it kind of limited what we could do offensively, but other guys stepped up."
"He had 24 points and nine rebounds, I don't think we stopped [Thomas]," Pitino said about Hofstra's main shooter.
Everyone got what they wanted out of the event:
"We played tough teams [in our non-conference schedule]," Pitino said.
"I feel like we're in a good place, you know, we have the same record as we did last year going into conference play," Claxton said. "So we're gonna try to keep building as the season progresses."
Looking forward, Claxton has an optimistic outlook for his squad: "I told these guys 'if we play like we did today in conference play, we're gonna win a lot of ballgames.'"
"Keep fighting, keep pushing through, and just be a leader out there for my guys," were Dubar's takeaways.
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