By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, News Correspondent
Sophomore Quincy Ford put the Huskies on his back in Wednesday night’s 65-60 win against Hofstra University, so much so that he could barely walk off the court at the end of the game.
The starting forward left the game as a result of back spasms with 4:24 left in the half, after scoring a game-high 24 points on a career-high 11 field goals. His 24-points was three shy of Ford’s career high against Princeton University on Nov. 13, 2012. Similar to that game, Ford showed he could score in a variety of ways whether it be a fast break dunk, deep three-pointer off of his developing post moves.
“I just came in and took what the defense [gave] me. Don’t be in a rush, be aggressive but confident as well,” Ford said. “If I had a mismatch in the post, go with that, if they double, kick it out and look for your teammates. That’s just how the flow of the game goes.”
Senior guard Joel Smith also chipped in 11-points and his co-captain Jon Lee scored 10. Sophomore center Reggie Spencer led the way in the rebounding category with five.
The Huskies (10-7, 5-0 CAA) didn’t score a field goal for the last four minutes of the game but were able to survive a late game rally by the Pride. With Northeastern up 62-53, Hofstra went on a 7-1 run to close it to a three-point game.
Following a timeout by Hofstra coach Mo Cassara, senior guard Stevie Mejia got an offensive rebound off of Matt Grogan’s missed three-pointer and pulled up of his own, but it was off the mark.
“We just couldn’t execute down the stretch, got a little fatigued, a couple looks around the basket and ultimately just couldn’t tie the game up but proud of our effort. Obviously we just got to keep grinding away,” Cassara said.
Another big reason for the Huskies’ win was the team’s defense on Hofstra’s leading scorer Taran Buie. The sophomore guard was held to 11 points on 4-15 shooting. Northeastern head coach Bill Coen gave a lot of the late game defensive credit to sophomore guard Demetrius Pollard.
“The game got physical at that point and we needed a physical defender on Buie,” Coen said. “I thought Demetrius, he’s a very confident player and he’s known for his shooting but he’s a pretty good defensive player, he came right off the bench and got a steal for us.”
Pollard, as well as junior center Dinko Marshavelski, helped Northeastern counteract their poor first half three-point shooting with their production off the bench.
“In the first half we settled a little bit too much for the outside shot,” Coen said. “We didn’t get the ball around the rim as much as we would’ve liked but I did think we got some great contributions off our bench.”
The Huskies, coming into the game as the third best three-point shooting team in the Colonia Athletic Association (CAA), only shot 4-11 from beyond the arc compared to Hofstra shooting 3-6. All three Hofstra shots were made by freshman forward David Imes, who led the Pride with 19-points on 7-10 shooting.
However, Marshavelski provided a spark on the boards with five first half rebounds and Pollard with a big three-pointer to give the Huskies an eight-point lead with 2:27 to go in the first half. Smith quickly counteracted with a three-pointer of his own making it an 11-point Husky lead, the largest lead of the game for Northeastern.
However, every time the Huskies looked like they were going to pull away, the Pride came right back with a rally. For a team going up against University of Delaware on Saturday, Northeastern will have to make sure they can correct that if they hope to remain on top of the CAA.
“We still have a young team, we want to continue to get better,” Coen said. “I thought today we had opportunities to put the game away on your home floor, we didn’t do that so we want to learn from that.”
