The Hofstra Men’s Basketball team giving high fives to fans at the Barclays Center. Photo by: Stacy Podelski/1495 Sports
Senior Tareq Coburn tied his career-high with 28 points and fellow senior Jalen Ray tallied 26 points but it wasn’t enough as the Hofstra Men’s Basketball team fell to James Madison, 93-89, on Saturday afternoon at the Atlantic Union Bank Center.
Coburn has now scored 28 points three times in his career, most recently at Monmouth back on December 15, 2020.
Hofstra fell to 12-8 overall and 8-5 in Colonial Athletic Association play with the loss. James Madison improved to 12-5 and 7-1 in league action.
Freshman Kvonn Cramer drained a three-pointer less than two minutes into the contest to give Hofstra an 8-2 advantage. Five quick points a few minutes later would push the advantage to seven, 18-11, after a three-pointer from Coburn at the 14:51 mark. Leading by four after a basket from JMU’s Vado Morse, the Pride scored seven straight points to push the lead to double digits, 32-21, for the first time in the contest. Hofstra took its largest lead of the stanza at 38-26 with 5:47 left before intermission before the Dukes chipped away and the Pride took a six-point lead into the break.
Four straight points by the Pride, including a layup from Coburn, would push the lead back to eight (53-45) with 16:03 left in the second half. After James Madison closed to within five, back-to-back buckets from Ray made it a 10-point game (63-53) with 13:17 remaining. The Dukes gradually chipped away at the deficit and a 9-3 run culminating with a basket from Michael Christmas made it 66-62 in favor of Hofstra with 11:24 left. Six straight points from James Madison got the Dukes within two, 74-72, with 5:08 to play to set up the finish. Trailing by six, James Madison scored seven straight points to turn an 81-75 Pride lead into an 82-81 Dukes advantage after a three-pointer from Christmas with 1:44 to play. Hofstra went back in front on a basket from Ray with 1:31 on the clock but James Madison took the lead for good with a Terrence Edwards jumper with 78 ticks left in the game.
Junior Isaac Kante had a team-high eight rebounds for Hofstra, which got seven points and eight assists from sophomore Caleb Burgess.
Matt Lewis led James Madison with 20 points and seven assists, while Justin Amadi added 15 and Julien Wooden chipped in with 13.
Hofstra and James Madison will face each other again on Sunday at 2 p.m.
NOTES
– Hofstra leads the all-time series with James Madison, 22-14. The win by the Dukes ended a seven-game win streak in the series by the Pride.
– Ray moved into 21st place all-time in scoring at Hofstra as he now has 1,255 career points. He passed Roberto Gittens (1,240 from 1997-2001).
– Coburn had five three-pointers in the game to give him 165 in his Pride career. He moved into 10th place all-time at Hofstra, passing Jay Hernandez (162 from 1998-2001). Ray had five three-pointers as well and now has 207 in his career. He is eight behind Eli Pemberton (215 from 2015-20) for fourth place all-time in program history.
– The 17 three-pointers by Hofstra marked a season-high and the most since the Pride had a school-record 20 against James Madison on February 29, 2020.
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Virtual Sellout – Hofstra University Athletics – Official Athletics Website (gohofstra.com)