Hofstra’s quarter-century-long dancing drought since the Jay Wright era has finally ended.
The Pride will play in the NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball for the first time since making back-to-back appearances under Wright in 2000-01 with a 75-69 victory Tuesday night over Monmouth at CareFirst Arena in Washington to capture the automatic bid out of the Coastal Athletic Association.
Hofstra (24-10) also qualified for the Big Dance in 2020 under Joe Mihalich — with current coach Craig “Speedy” Claxton serving as an assistant — but the national tournament was canceled that March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Claxton, a Former Pride star and seven-year NBA player, has been the head coach at his alma mater since replacing Mihalich in 2021.
Freshman guard Preston Edmead, who beat the overtime buzzer one night earlier with a banked 3-pointer to knock out Towson in the semifinals, scored 26 points for Hofstra, including a four-point play midway through the first half.
Kavion McClain led Monmouth (19-15) with 29 points. The Hawks have not reached the NCAAs since 2006 and, thus, never in head coach King Rice’s 15 seasons on the bench.
Cruz Davis, the CAA player of the year, only scored three points in 12 minutes amid foul trouble in the first half, but Edmead finished with 16, and Biggie Patterson added six off the bench as Hofstra carried a 35-32 lead into intermission.
McClain, Monmouth’s leading scorer, also had a quiet first half with two points. But he netted 11 in the first four minutes of the second half to give Monmouth a 45-39 advantage.
Led by a couple of buckets by Davis, Hofstra responded with a 12-2 spurt to go back up by four.
One free throw by Edmead extended the lead to seven with under eight minutes to play, and the Deer Park product’s 3-point bucket with less than four minutes left restored the margin to six.
A lefty runner by David made it a 66-62 game with 1:32 to go,
Justin Ray buried a huge trey to pull the Hawks within one 19 seconds later, but senior German Plotnikov responded with a 3-pointer for a four-point Hofstra lead with 60 seconds on the clock
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