City of Basketball Love

Rich Flanagan (@RichFlanagan33)
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From the outset, La Salle head coach John Giannini was not pleased. His Explorers gave up a 14-0 run in the first half and surrendered an 11-3 run to end the half to the Hofstra Pride.

Hofstra led 44-31 at the break, and there was not much for Giannini to be proud of. 

“We missed layups, avoided contact and stepped out of bounds. We shuffled our feet and traveled," Giannini said when talking about his team's first-half performance. “You’ll go on a drought if you travel, step out of bounds, miss layups and avoid contact on your shots.”

The Explorers had ten turnovers at the half, and shot a dismal 2 of 12 from three-point range.

Luckily, there’s two halves in a basketball game. La Salle hit on 20-34 from the field in the second half, including six 3-pointers to close Hofstra’s deficit which was in double digits for much of the game.

The Explorers were able to cut the lead to nine with 12:39 left in the half. The Pride maintained their lead but La Salle finally made their run at the midway point of the half. With the score 68-55 La Salle went on an 11-0 run to cut Hofstra’s lead to two. Guard Jordan Price keyed the Explorers comeback with 24 second-half points and finished with a career-high 37.

Hofstra (5-2) hit clutch free throws down the stretch to pull out an 84-80 win, but Giannini liked what he saw from his team down the stretch.

“I thought we became a better basketball team in the second half tonight. If you have some character and your opponent pushes you and you respond, you gave effort,” Giannini said. "We were a train wreck in the first half. The second half was very encouraging. [I liked] our poise and our competitiveness against a really good team, giving ourselves a chance to win and not quitting.”

Price, who has scored 30-plus in two of the last four games, was happy with the effort of his teammates, such as Cleon Roberts (13 points) and Tony Washington (10 points).

“It’s always good to see. My teammates fight with me and obviously we came up short but it’s always good to see them work through things and be like this,” Price said.

Hofstra’s offense was really clicking in that first half. The Pride shot 51.5 percent from the field and hit seven 3-pointers. In the second half, they shot a misleading 52.6 percent by only attempting 19 shots. The Explorers made it tougher to get shots off and forced Hofstra into ten second-half turnovers.

Giannini noted the difference between his team and Hofstra head coach Joe Mihalich’s team, whose squad helped him reach the 300-win mark for his career, but continued to reiterate how composed his team after the intermission.

“We got beat by a very good team. They’re more experienced than us,” Giannini said. “They’re better shooters than us. They have more size than us. I’m under no delusion about where our team stands right now this second, but I do think we can have a good team. I think in the second half we improved ourselves against a very good opponent.”

One reason La Salle (4-2) was able to mount a second half surge was Price’s play on Hofstra leading scorer and Philly native Juan’ya Green (Archbishop Carroll). Green came into the game averaging 19.8 points per game, but finished with ten points and eight assists.

Price was able to limit Green but said he does not “really focus on one player; I focus on the team.”

Behind the leadership of Price, Giannini hopes to take that intensity his team played with in that second half and continue that in their next contest against the Drexel Dragons.

“If we had to play the game over, I think we’d have a great chance to win,” Giannini said. “I thought our first half was awful and we dug ourselves a hole but we got better in the second half. If we play like we did in the second half, I think we would’ve been fine.”