It’s not often that NCAA basketball fans get to witness games between their alma maters and namesakes.
Well, mostly because they don’t have surnames like Kansas, Kentucky or North Carolina. But when you’re a fan of mid-major basketball, your last name is Wagner and you cover the Hofstra Pride (a that team happens to represent the school you graduated from), you get to indulge in that rare opportunity.
That was the case once again on Sunday afternoon when the Wagner Seahawks visited the Mack Sports Complex to play Hofstra for the 53rd time.
Although that’s a lot of meetings, with the Pride winning 34 of those matchups, the rivalry is fairly new to yours truly, after it was renewed in 2010, following a long hiatus.
The initial matchup I saw between the Namesakes and Alma Maters that year was by far the best of the four I’ve seen.
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In many ways, it provided everything I was looking for from a Wagner-Hofstra matchup. The Namesakes won a half, the Alma Maters won the game — a thriller, at that — with the Pride’s all-time leading scorer (Charles Jenkins) catching fire late to lead Hofstra to an exciting four-point win that went down to the final seconds.
Ideally, that’s what you want to root for when you have no ties to the Namesakes other than your surname, and you’re an alum of their opponent. You hope the Namesakes represent your name well, but that your old school ultimately pulls out a close, stirring victory.
I got lucky that time, but the Namesakes-Alma Maters series hasn’t been nearly as compelling since.
After Jenkins graduated, the Alma Maters forgot how to score against the Namesakes, who easily beat Hofstra at home, 58-43, in 2011, before winning at the Mack, 52-44, a year later.
There was no Wagner-Hofstra meeting last year, so I was looking forward to seeing if the Alma Maters could even the series (at least since I’ve been following it) on Sunday.
Not only did the Alma Maters come through on that front, they did so with ease, and in a highly entertaining way. Hofstra drained threes (making 10 of its first 14), forced turnovers and got out on the break for several easy buckets.
Two newcomers (guard Juan’ya Green and forward Ameen Tanksley), each from Philadelphia, by way of Niagara –where head coach, Joe Mihalich, coached for 15 years before joining the Alma Maters last season — were a delight to watch as they torched the Namesakes for a combined 41 points on just nine shots apiece, while Green added a game-high 11 assists with only a pair of turnovers.
While I hope to see the Namesakes defend the Wagner name against all other teams, it wasn’t bad to see them blown out in such an impressive performance from the Alma Maters on my old campus.
Yet there was one small regret with the 49 free throws (34 in the second half) taken by the Alma Maters. They only made 35 foul shots, when 36 would have been perfect.
Although the Namesakes cooperated with a 3-pointer in the final seconds, to get to a perfect 71 points and match the year (’71) I was born as a Wagner, that one extra miss at the foul line kept the Alma Maters at 93 points, just one shy of the year (’94) I graduated from Hofstra.
With a middle name of Jay, I’m still holding out hope that John Jay College will drop the ’h’ for a scrimmage against Wagner, so I can see a Jon Jay-Wagner game. But for now, seeing the Alma Maters beat the Namesakes again, and look good while doing it, was just fine.
Next: College Basketball Rankings: Preseason Top 25 for 2014-15 Season