CAA Men's Basketball

Hofstra Stuns UCLA, Earns 'Win For The Ages'

Hofstra Stuns UCLA, Earns 'Win For The Ages'

Hofstra erased a 13-point first half deficit to knock off UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Thursday night.

Nov 22, 2019 by Jerry Beach
Hofstra Stuns UCLA, Earns 'Win For The Ages'

It’s not like the Hofstra men’s basketball team has never beaten a major program before.

Four years ago this week, Hofstra beat Florida State in a tournament in the Virgin Islands. In 2007, the Pride beat Nebraska in the NIT a few months after beating St. John’s for the fourth straight season. Back in the Flying Dutchmen days, there were wins over Rutgers, Georgia Tech, Mississippi, Florida and Virginia. 

But none of the first 12 victories over major programs happened across the country, at one of the meccas of college basketball, at the start of a marathon road trip that could define a season in which the pendulum has already swung between high expectations and worst-case scenarios.

There’s no doubt about it. Hofstra 88, UCLA 78 is the biggest win in program history.

“The people that love Hofstra basketball will talk about, holy cow, our guys went to Pauley Pavilion and won,” Hofstra head coach Joe Mihalich said a few minutes before 3 AM this morning, after a locker room speech that’d already hit Twitter and before a spot on New York sports talk radio giant WFAN. “Gives you the chills just thinking about these kids and the great job they did.”

All Hofstra had to do to beat UCLA was mount what amounted to its biggest comeback in nearly two years. The Pride trailed Mount St. Mary’s by 15 points in the first half of a 79-61 win on Nov. 9, 2018, but that deficit was incurred in the first eight minutes of a shake-off-the-cobwebs season opener at home.

On Thursday, UCLA drained 12 of its first 19 shots, including eight of nine during a 19-8 run that gave the Bruins a 32-19 lead with 8:14 left in the first half. It seemed to be a particularly dangerous moment for Hofstra, which is short on size and lean in the rotation and had already proven susceptible to game-changing runs in the second halves of losses to San Jose State and Bucknell.

But UCLA missed its next six shots and Jalen Ray hit back-to-back 3-pointers to spark a 10-0 run by the Pride, which cut the deficit to 42-41 entering halftime.

“When we were down (13), the wheels had a chance to totally fall off, and they didn’t,” Mihalich said. “The way we finished the first half, I really thought we could do this.”

The Bruins appeared to be on the verge of pulling away again when they took a 59-51 lead on an old-fashioned 3-point play by Cody Riley. But the Pride scored the next eight points, the final six of which came on consecutive 3-pointers by Ray, to tie the game with 11:32 left.

A free throw by Ray gave Hofstra the lead for good at 64-63 with 8:07 remaining, and a 3-pointer from the wing on the next trip down the floor by Tareq Coburn began a game-ending stretch in which the Pride went 5-of-7 from the field while Ray and Desure Buie combined to go 12-for-12 from the line. 

The performances Thursday by Buie and Ray — who each shattered their previous career highs by scoring 29 and 27 points, respectively — may have signaled a a literal changing of the guard for Hofstra, which needs someone to be “The Man” now that Justin Wright-Foreman is scoring buckets for the Utah Jazz’s G-League affiliate. Maybe Buie, the fifth-year senior on pace to play more games than anyone else in the history of the program, and the sharp-shooting Ray can fill that void together.

“Justin Wright-Foreman has no equal,” Mihalich said. “But I’m not sure if we had two guards last year play this good. Now that doesn’t discount the 48 points Justin had against William & Mary. But man, this guard play was unbelievable.”

The upset came eight days after Hofstra squandered a second half lead against Bucknell and 15 days after the Pride lost its home opener to San Jose State, which entered the game ranked amongst the bottom 25 teams in the country at KenPom.com. So how does that team beget this?

“Because they’re kids,” Mihalich said with a laugh. “But we won the game not just because of what we did tonight, but because of what happened the last three (games). We hated the fact we lost to Bucknell. We hated the fact that we lost to San Jose State.

“What’s the old expression? Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser? And our guys are not good losers. They hated it. They’re a really good team. You don’t want to play a really good team after a loss. And with all due respect to (Division II) New York Tech (whom Hofstra beat 111-69 last Friday), that didn’t even count. This was the one. This was the one.”

Now Hofstra looks to turn one win into three on a California trip that continues with games at Cal-State Fullerton Sunday and at San Diego Wednesday. That task starts today, even as the echoes only begin to be heard from last night’s win. 

“It’s a win for the ages,” Mihalich said. “It’s a win that Hofstra will talk about and hold close to their hearts forever. Not for the next week. Not for the next month. Not for the rest of the year. Forever.

“Forever.”

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