#djambo

This year’s Hofstra men’s basketball roster will feature returnees like Juan’ya Green, Ameen Tanksley, and Brian Bernardi, but there will also be some players putting on a Pride uniform for the first time this season.

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Hofstra’s 2014-15 season ended in heartbreaking fashion.  In the CAA semifinals, William & Mary’s Daniel Dixon hit a three-pointer with eight tenths of a second left to beat the Pride in double overtime, 92-91.  But don’t worry, Pride fans –– the new additions to this year’s team will assure you that you won’t have your hearts broken again come March.

Ibrahim Djambo, who transferred to Hofstra following his junior year at Clemson University in South Carolina, was forced to sit out the 2014-15 season due to NCAA rules.  The 6-foot-10 forward, though, is eligible this year and will give the Pride a much-needed frontcourt presence.  The senior from Mali averaged just 8.8 minutes per game at his former ACC school, but his role will likely increase since Hofstra has only one other true post player who has more than one year of experience under his belt.

Before the 2014-15 campaign even began, Hofstra was making noise.  Last October, head coach Joe Mihalich earned commitments from two class of 2015 players –– Justin Wright-Foreman and Desure Buie.

Wright-Foreman, a 6-foot shooting guard from Laurelton, New York, is a pure scorer.  In an AAU game against the Ohio Basketball Club, he dropped 48 points.  ESPN notes “his ability to play above the rim and make momentum-changing plays in the open floor.”

His fellow freshman is Buie, another New York City product (Bronx).  ESPN described the 6-foot point guard as “perhaps the best true point guard in New York City” in 2014-15, so although he’s not the scorer Wright-Foreman is, he can find his teammates in good spots.  In his senior year at Wings Academy, he averaged 10 assists.

Other players will get the bulk of the minutes at the guard positions, but since Hofstra will graduate Green and Tanksley next year and Bernardi the year after, Buie and Wright-Foreman are poised to be Hofstra’s future backcourt combination.

Hofstra made another splash this past May when it announced that Denton Koon, a graduate transfer from Princeton, had joined the program and is eligible to play immediately.  The Liberty, Missouri, native scored a career-high 23 points at Columbia on Feb. 22, 2013.  He’s dangerous behind the arc, too, as he shot 16-37 (43 percent) from three-point distance in his sophomore campaign.

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