Spiders Fall to Hofstra
The Richmond Spiders were defeated by the Hofstra Pride 76-71 this afternoon at the Robins Center. The Spiders had a slow start to this one, as they had trouble adjusting to Hofstra’s zone defense. They missed open looks early on, but they adapted later on in the half, and let that carry over into the 2nd half. Richmond was led by Tyler Burton and Grant Golden, who each scored a team high 15 points in the loss. Richmond shot 29-57 as a team (51%) and 6-13 from the FT line, which proved to be costly. Richmond also did a good job of hanging onto the ball, something that has been a problem recently. They only registered 7 turnovers this afternoon. However, Hofstra prevailed.
Energy
Richmond came out of the locker room with a completely different type of energy. They were swarming on defense, Grant Golden was hitting his shots, and overall, just a completely different start to the half. Hofstra regained the lead with about 8 minutes to play, and it was a dog fight from there. Jalen Ray seemingly could not miss, as he finished with 23 points, including 5 from deep. The Pride finished 29-48 (60.4%) in this one, which is hard to defend when they’re 10-20 from deep. The teams traded punches to the very in in this one. Blake Francis went down and appeared that he was injured, but the officials let play carry on, leading to a Hofstra dunk. From there, Hofstra ran with this one. It seemed that when the offense was struggling, the defense picked up the slack. However, when the defense struggled, the offense caught fire. Richmond just couldn’t put both together in this one. Nathan Cayo only played 17 minutes in this one as he had 4 fouls, which can’t happen when he’s having the offensive start that he’s had to this young season. We got to see a lot of Connor Crabtree in this one, as he finished with 8 points in 21 minutes of play, and provided some great defense for the Spiders. Jacob Gilyard knocked down three from downtown, finishing with 13 points and 3 steals.
Road Ahead
As non-conference play has now finished for the Spiders, they will now host the St. Bonaventure Bonnies on January 2nd at 5:00. Richmond finished their 2020 portion of this year’s schedule at 6-2. Be sure to follow along right here on @A10Talk on Twitter, as well as @AustinDaisey11 for all things Richmond basketball. We will see you in the new year Spider Nation!
