Q & A with Hofstra Basketball Coach Tom Pecora
The Pride of Long Island speaks with Game On!
by: Gregory Gethard
Perhaps the most underrated basketball team in the metro area is the Hofstra Pride. Hofstra's almost always a top team in the very tough Colonial Athletic Association (home to George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth and other teams who regularly ruin your bracket come March). The Pride are a highly entertaining team, playing an up-tempo offense run by their great guards. This year, they've been picked to finish in the middle-of-the-pack in the CAA, but they've got more than enough talent to end up as one of the best teams in the league.
I recently talked with head coach Tom Pecora about Hofstra's upcoming season and their success in developing one heck of a basketball program.
Gethard: Last year, the Pride was led by Antoine Agudio, the school's all-time leading scorer and someone who should have a stellar career playing as a professional. How does a team try and go about finding someone who can replace a guy like Agudio?
Pecora: I think what Antoine did most for us was score the basketball. He was our school's all-time leading scorer and was tremendous at that aspect of the game. What we have to do is replace his points. At times last year, we were so dependent on him having to make a big play and our guys deferred to him so often, it made us predictable. We're back to having more balance and that's a good thing.
Gethard: Hofstra struggled on the road last season. How hard is it to prepare for road games compared to home games?
Pecora: You have to have a good basketball team to win on the road. Last year, we were not very good. Hopefully that's a blip on the map. We were inexperienced. We weren't young, but our juniors did not get a lot of minutes since they did not play a lot as freshmen and sophomores. There's an old saying that winning on the road is magic. The teams that find a way to win on the road are special teams. You have to find a way to take a 'W' on the road, get on the bus and get out of town.
Gethard: Charles Jenkins looks like the next great guard to come out of Hempstead. Can you talk a little bit about his game? What kind of potential does he have?
Pecora: We have a history here of having great guards. And they've passed the torch to him. He was the rookie of the year both in our conference and the entire metro area. The sky is the limit for him. His work habits are tremendous, he's a great leader and he's the most physically imposing guard we've ever had at 6-foot-3 and 220 lbs. We really feel the ball is in good hands when it's with him. He can also play off the ball. He's a complete player. He rebounds, he defends, he makes effort plays. That's what defines greatness.
Gethard: Hofstra has been a program which has always had stellar guards like Speedy Claxton, Rick Apodaca, Loren Stokes, Aguido and now Jenkins. People have called Penn State's football program as "Linebacker U," due to its success in developing players in that position. I refer to Hofstra as "Guard U" since your program has had such a great history in developing really great back courts. How has your program gone about developing such great guards?
Pecora: There are more quality guards out there. If there's a 6-foot-10 guy out there, he's going to go to one of the major conferences. So instead, we try and get guards. What helps our guards out is that they play. When we bring them in, we give them an opportunity to play. We always have three guards on the floor and that gets them an opportunity to make plays. We give them freedom, offensively. We play to their strengths. I think their talent has a lot to do with their greatness. There's a lot of over-coaching going on in the sport. Sometimes, with great players you have to let them breathe. But Charles Jenkins, with his size, he's a great linebacker who now plays as a guard at Hofstra.
Gethard: Can you speak about the CAA, which is probably the nation's most underrated conference?
Pecora: I think it's the southern version of the Atlantic-10. In the north, people don't realize the level of play and athletes and coaching in our conference. A number of our coaches have gotten their start in other conferences. To a man, everyone talks about how competitive our league is. We have guys who coached in the ACC or were assistants in the Big East. They've been exposed to basketball at every level. It's as competitive a league as there is in the country. There are so many close games. It doesn't matter if it's a team on the top half vs. a team on the bottom half. It's still going to come down to the final two minutes and will end up as a one or two possession game most of the time.
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