Previewing Hofstra...

The road has not been the Patriot's friend this season; but the Patriot Center certainly has. Mason hosts Hofstra tonight, televised on ESPNU or you can just watch it here. Can the Patriots extend their home court dominance to 11 games this season? They will have to if they want to remain near the top of the CAA standings. Gomason.com points out that is a match-up of the league's most efficient offense against the league's toughest defense. Hofstra has been keeping opponents under 40% shooting all season long; they are big and can be very aggressive. Michael Litos mentions on his blog that this is not exactly the kind of team Mason needs to be facing right now and I agree. Charles Jenkins leads Hofstra scoring about 18 a game and the Patriots cannot let him go off like Matt Janning, Eric Maynor and Gerald Lee did. Larranaga isn't happy with the team's recent defensive efforts and who could blame him. The Patriots went from holding their first six CAA opponents to under 39% shooting to allowing three of their last four to shoot over 40% with ODU shooting 59%. Yikes. What happened? Holes seem to be popping up all over the place on the team's defense and you would almost have to wonder if some of the younger guys have gotten a little lax after such a good start to the season. They don't seem to be playing with enough intensity for the full 40 minutes lately. We have seen slow first halves matched with very aggressive second halves and that just isn't always going to yield victories.