Hot-Shooting Hofstra Downs Tribe, 71-59

Junior Forward Hawley Smith Pours in Career High 20 for W&M

01/05/05 10:03PM

WILLIAMSBURG, VA - Hofstra’s men’s basketball team shot 53.6% in the first half, including 50% from three-point range, and had five score in double-figures to beat William and Mary, 71-59, Wednesday night in Colonial Athletic Association action at William and Mary Hall.

Tribe junior Hawley Smith (Jacksonville, FL) scored a career-high 20 points on 6-for-9 shooting from the floor to pace the College, which dropped to 4-7 overall and 0-2 in the CAA. The Pride, off to its best start since 1960-61, improved to 10-1 overall, 2-0 in the league.

Hofstra opened up a 12-2 lead in the first five minutes of the contest and led by as many as 15 in the opening frame be-hind a torrid start from the field. Sophomore guard Carlos Rivera, who shared team-high honors in the game with 16 points, drained 3-of-4 attempts from behind the arc in the first half, as the Pride shot 7-for-14 from long distance and took a 42-30 lead at the break.

Tribe freshman guard Nathan Mann (Overland Park, KS) kept the Green and Gold in it early with his own long-range shooting, burying 3-of-4 three-point shots in the first stanza en route to 11 points at intermission.

The College quickly cut the deficit to eight in the second half on back-to-back buckets from Smith, but a jumper from Pride sophomore Loren Stokes, who tied Rivera for the team-lead with 16, pushed the advantage back to 10, 44-34, with 17:34 remaining.

Smith trimmed the lead to seven with a three-pointer with 17:15 remaining, but Stokes answered with two free throws after a Tribe turnover to push the lead back to nine, 48-39. W&M sophomore Corey Cofield (Newton, MA) dropped in his lone field goal of the game on the next possession to get within seven again, but that was as close as the Tribe would get, as Hofstra reeled off a 12-0 run to take a 19-point lead, 60-41, with 13:10 remaining.

The Tribe pulled to within 11 on two occasions down the stretch on a layup from junior center Nate Loehrke (Kalamazoo, MI) that made it 62-51 with 7:33 left, and a jumper from Smith at the 4:25 mark that cut the deficit to 64-53, but Rivera drilled his fourth triple of the game with 1:27 to give his team a 70-57 lead and put the game away.

Smith, who went 2-for-3 from behind the arc and 6-for-6 from the stripe, added four rebounds and a pair of steals, while Mann wound up with 13 points on 5-of-8 FG shooting. Cofield chipped in with eight points and a team-high five boards, and freshman Laimis Kisielius (Vilnius, Lithuania) added eight points, three rebounds and two assists. Smith, Kisielius and Cofield each shot 6-for-6 from the foul line, as the Tribe made good on 20-of-22 (90.9%) opportunities at the line.

W&M returns to action Saturday at afternoon, as the Tribe takes on Delaware at 2:00 PM. Hofstra’s next game is also Saturday, as the Pride hosts Drexel at 4:00 PM.


Box Score


Post-Game Quotes from W&M Head Coach Tony Shaver
“They [Hofstra] are really talented. They’ve got five or six guys that are very skilled basketball players. They all handle the ball well, they all shoot the ball very well. I think they’re very knowledgeable about what they want to do on the floor. I’m very impressed with them.”

“They’re tough to defend. We tried them zone and they’ve got so many good shooters. We tried to play them man-to-man and we really don’t have anybody with the ability or quickness of Loren Stokes to keep him out of the lane, and if you try to help on him, you’re leaving great shooters open.”

“We can’t start the game and have a couple of our good players not play and we had that situation tonight. We had a couple guys in the starting lineup that didn’t come out ready to play and it really hurt us. You could see the mental mistakes that we made. In the lockerroom, these guys were excited about playing tonight. There was great adrenaline in the lockerroom, I don’t know that we didn’t play hard early, but we sure didn’t play well in the first three or four minutes of the ballgame.”

“I’d like to find five guys that play like Hawley Smith. He is one tough kid and a great kid. He was really our first recruit here and he’s doing all the things we hoped he would do and maybe more. He’s becoming a great leader for us. It’s a tough role for him as a junior to be a leader for us, but he’s really taken the team under his wing. We’ve got two or three guys, and Hawley’s one of them, every day you know what he’s going to give you. We’ve got a lot of inconsistency on this team and we’ve just got to get guys playing well every day.”