The buzzer sounded. Hofstra coach Mo Cassara stood on the sidelines with his face in his hands, his jacket long removed. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. Ten games into an unimaginably trying season, what else could go wrong?
In the Pride’s third game since the season-changing arrest and suspension of four players, Hofstra suffered its fifth straight loss yesterday in heartbreaking fashion, blowing a 16-point lead with 12 minutes left as LIU Brooklyn pulled off the improbable win, 88-84, to extend its home win streak at the WRAC to 30 games.
“Just a tough ending,” Cassara said. “There was a stretch of time there in the second half where I thought we played as well as we can play. I thought we battled. A couple walk-ons in there giving everything they got, playing some guys out of position, [a] couple freshmen who haven’t played a lot did some great things. Obviously our margin for error is very small.”
Despite shooting over 64 percent from the field in the second half, Hofstra hit only 19-of-33 free throws, while LIU (3-4), which scored 46 points in the first 28 minutes, used intense full-court pressure, and an equally intimidating soundtrack from the stands, to win its third straight game.
Trailing by one point with 40 seconds remaining, senior forward Booker Hucks, returning from injury to play his first game of the season, put the Blackbirds ahead for good with a 3-pointer near the top of the key.
“We don’t lose at home. That was the only thing I was thinking,” Hucks said. “I feel like I never left. I was just ready to help them out. I couldn’t wait to get back.”
Although LIU point guard Jason Brickman picked up three early fouls, the Blackbirds led 35-32 at the half, but the Pride (3-7) scored the first six points of the second half. They soon extended the lead to double-digits after back-to-back 3-pointers from Taran Buie, who finished with a career-high 29 points.
Trailing by 14, the Blackbirds’ prospects grew dimmer when leading-scorer Jamal Olasewere fouled out with 8:46 remaining, but LIU fed off the inside-out combination of Brickman, who had 12 points and nine assists, and forward Julian Boyd, who scored 19 of his 20 points in the final 15 minutes.
“We were playing terribly, it was 16, but there was so much time left,” said LIU coach Jack Perri, whose team trailed 62-46. “I said, ‘Guys, we’ve been here before. We’ve got to get stops and got to keep playing together.’ ”
The Blackbirds cut the lead to four with four minutes remaining, but wouldn’t tie the score until a Brickman to Boyd inbounds alley-oop with 1:05 left. Boyd was fouled on the play and converted the free throw to give LIU the lead.
Buie came back down and hit a jumper, setting the stage for Hucks’ heroics.
“We’re gonna take all positives from this,” Buie said. “We don’t have any room to be taking any negatives with us. We’re just trying to find ways to win with what we got. Coach has done a great job of handling everything and promoting positivity in practice and in games and we just got to execute down the stretch.”