WASHINGTON, D.C. – Speedy Claxton has a favorite word, at least for now.
Legendary. Leh-juhn-deh-ree.
Just ask the man himself. He’d be quick to tell you, quick to bring it up, quick to flash a smile when Mid-Major Madness’s Jonathan Wagner mentioned the word at the press conference after Claxton coached his Hofstra Pride to a win over Monmouth in the CAA championship game. It’s a word Claxton came back to time after time over the three-day span in which his beloved Pride took down William & Mary, then Towson, then Monmouth to stake its claim to Hofstra’s first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2001.
The definition of legendary is two-pronged. It can either mean “to be based on legend,” or it can mean “remarkable enough to be famous, or very well known.” In this case, you’d have to imagine Claxton was talking about the latter, and if he was, he’d be right.
Hofstra began this season on the outside looking in on what figured to be a three-horse race in the CAA. Towson, UNCW and Charleston — the team with the most returning talent, the reigning conference champion and the richest team in the league, respectively — were the only three squads to receive a first-place vote in the preseason poll. Claxton’s Hofstra? They tied for eighth in that poll, reeling off of a disappointing season and having lost a number of key players including star guard Jean Aranguren in a will-they-won’t-they transfer saga to George Washington.
But, as the season took shape, the Pride began to take shape too. They garnered some national attention with a road win over ACC foe Pittsburgh, before doing the exact same thing to fellow ACC giant Syracuse a week later. Then came a four-game win streak to open conference play. A weird, unlucky, shorthanded five-game losing streak met its end when the Pride won eight of nine to close the regular season. All of a sudden, those plucky, afterthought Dutchmen were a third seed and one of the hottest teams in the country.
“I knew from day one when I got my guys on the court in June that it was going to be a special year for us,” Claxton said. “I wish I would’ve documented it [more].”
Once in the Small Dance (that’s how we refer to conference tournaments here), Hofstra slaughtered William & Mary in the quarterfinal. The semifinal was something out of a sports movie — freshman guard Preston Edmead took over for superstar guard Cruz Davis after he fouled out, hitting a circus-shot, bank-in, buzzer-beating three to knock out Towson in overtime (legendary, if you ask me) — and the Pride came out victorious. In the final, Hofstra withstood multiple Monmouth runs, weathered a Kavion McClain 3-point barrage, and rode a red-hot Edmead to a white-knuckle victory for the second time in 24 hours.
There was more to Tuesday’s championship than just a sentence, of course. It was a hell of a game. Sitting on press row, surrounded by a cauldron of noise (most of it coming from traveling Monmouth fans, I might add), there were at least a half-dozen moments where I looked to my colleagues on either side of me and had nothing to say except wow. It was that kind of night.
I could take you through a play-by-play, but I’m not sure I’d be doing it justice. The best way to describe it is as such: you could sit where I sat with your eyes closed and know exactly what was going on. Every time Monmouth did anything — a rebound, a good pass, a layup — the fans to my left exploded, and every time Hofstra made a play, the same happened to my right.
For the better part of 40 minutes, it was noise for noise. Neither side opened up a lead larger than seven; at various points throughout the night, you could’ve claimed, without much rebuttal, that either side had taken control. Hofstra answered a 10-2 Hawks run with 10 straight of their own points. McClain and teammate Justin Ray traded buckets with Edmead and Davis. Stefanos Spartalis and Hofstra’s Silas Sunday did battle under the hoop. Monmouth’s Jack Collins and the Pride’s Joshua DeCady took turns wreaking havoc on the defensive end. It was borderline basketball nirvana.
When the dust settled with 2:25 to play, it was a two-point game. Mostly by way of Edmead’s 24 points, it was Hofstra that held the narrow lead, despite Davis’ unsightly eight points on 2-of-12 from the floor. When it counted most, though, Davis showed up, slaloming his way into the paint for a short jumper to push the lead to four.
Here came the Hawks. A beautifully designed ATO drawn up by head coach King Rice left Ray wide open for a left-wing three, which he drained. Hofstra’s German Plotnikov responded, draining the biggest shot of the night, a right-wing three with 58 seconds to play. Monmouth couldn’t immediately respond, committing a turnover before an Edmead miss gave the Hawks one more gasp with 23 seconds to play, trailing by four.
By all accounts, Jack Collins is a rarity in modern college basketball. Collins grew up in Manasquan, N.J., just over 20 minutes from Monmouth. He committed to Rice and Monmouth in high school, never wavered, and spent all four years of his collegiate career just miles from home. In his senior season, Collins became team captain, and earned preseason All-CAA Second Team honors for what figured to be a big season.
That big season never came to fruition. Instead, Collins found himself staring at career lows in virtually every counting stat. His lead guard role was poached by burgeoning star Jason Rivera-Torres and later McClain. Collins was shoehorned into a number of uncomfortable roles throughout the year, ranging from point guard to wing to undersized power forward. Eventually, he found his niche: an underappreciated, overlooked defensive maestro who holds opponents well below their averages and efficiencies.
“[Jack] Collins is an incredible kid,” Rice said. “He stayed when he could’ve left. When he stayed last year, it made three or four other guys stay. He’s one of the all-timers.”
In the title game? Few outside the Monmouth bench knew the extent of it, but Collins was playing with a torn meniscus. He’d been playing with the injury for the last 12 games, actually. And, behind a tough exterior and a handful of injections, he’d succeeded. His primary matchup on the night, CAA Player of the Year Cruz Davis, was just 3-for-13. Collins had done his job, playing nowhere near full capacity.
And now? With 18 seconds remaining, and his Hawks trailing by four, the ball found Collins on the fast break. Alone, behind the arc, without a soul around.
Be it the meniscus, the pressure, the exhaustion, maybe a combination of all three, Monmouth’s captain just couldn’t get enough on the shot. It fell short, took a hop, and landed out of bounds as Collins clapped his hands and looked to the sky in a frustration that cut right through the tumult erupting from anyone in the building wearing Hofstra blue.
That would all but do it. Hofstra made their free throws — Edmead and Davis, to be specific — and even a miraculous and-one McClain three wasn’t enough to alter this one. By the time Plotnikov stepped to the line, with his team nursing a four-point lead with less than a second on the clock, the Hofstra cohort — and bench — were in full-on euphoria.
When the buzzer sounded, Plotnikov collapsed, falling to the floor in tears of joy. Hofstra’s bench exploded onto the floor, swarming Edmead. Cruz Davis — ever the quiet, stoic one — leapt in the air, jumping for joy in every sense of the phrase. Claxton handed out bear hugs like they were Halloween candy.
At long last, the Hofstra Pride were CAA champions.
“I couldn’t be happier for these kids,” Claxton said, game ball still in hand. “This is a moment they’re going to share for a lifetime… I won a championship at every level. My collegiate championship meant the most to me.”
Yes, I know. In reality, it hasn’t been that long. In fact, Tuesday marked just six years to the day since the last time the Pride won the CAA tournament. At the time, Speedy was an assistant at his alma mater, under head man Joe Mihalich. In the moment, it looked like Hofstra would snap a 19-year March Madness drought, returning to the Dance for the first time since Claxton made it as a player in 2001.
You may recall what else happened six years ago, though. Mere days after claiming the CAA crown, COVID-19 ripped life away as we knew it, including Hofstra’s ticket to March Madness. Those Dutchmen never got their chance to dance.
“Nothing better stop us this year,” a grinning Claxton said.
In a run where Davis wasn’t quite himself, it was the freshman Edmead that took the reins, scoring 51 points across three games (and hitting the biggest shot in recent CAA memory in the semifinals) to clinch tournament MVP. For a kid from Deer Park, N.Y., — just 20 miles from Hofstra — it was nothing short of a dream come true.
“It means so much,” said Edmead. “Being a kid from Long Island, it means everything… I wouldn’t want to win with anyone besides this team. I love them.”
Eventually, as the moon rose higher in the D.C. sky, Hofstra’s celebrations began to wind down. The public ones, at least. And, as it should’ve been, it was Claxton — first a player, then a pro, then an assistant, now back home as coach — who made the final foray up the ladder to cut down the final piece holding net to rim.
When that net came down, Speedy waved it around in jubilation, before adorning it around his neck. After all, from the moment that final buzzer sounded, that’s where it was destined to be. One more deserved piece of jewelry for a man who bleeds Hofstra blue and sweats Hofstra gold.
“Hopefully, they’ll build a statue for me at some point,” said a joking Claxton postgame.
You know what? I don’t think that’d be such a bad idea.
