There will be two very familiar faces on the Mack Sports Complex court Nov. 24, when the Hofstra men’s basketball team is scheduled to host Division II Molloy in the first game the Pride has played at home in front of fans in 21 months. 

Fifth-year senior Jalen Ray, last seen delivering the go-ahead 3-pointer late in the second half of Hofstra’s 2020 CAA championship game win over Northeastern, will be back as the focal point of the Pride offense. Ray chose to come back for the extra season the NCAA granted to those who played during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 campaign.

And the most recognizable figure in Hofstra basketball history—if not the entire athletic program—will be strolling the sideline for his first home game as head coach. Craig “Speedy” Claxton, the program-changing recruit for a young coach named Jay Wright who led the then-Flying Dutchmen to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 23 years in 2000 before playing 10 seasons in the NBA, was named Joe Mihalich’s successor Apr. 7, making him one of just seven Division I head coaches directing their alma maters after an NBA career. 

Ray is one of just five returnees for Hofstra, which went 13-10 in the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season and saw its bid to repeat as CAA champions end with a 76-58 loss to Elon in the tournament semifinals.

Claxton may have spent more time luring back Ray, who is on pace to shatter the school record for games played, than any of the Pride’s nine newcomers.

“That was actually my hardest recruiting pitch I ever had to make this past spring getting Jalen to stay,” Claxton said with a laugh during last week’s CAA Media Day. “But I’m thankful that he did. I really think he’s going to have a memorable senior year.”

Ray’s 221 3-pointers and 1,334 points rank fourth and 17th in school history, respectively. He will be entrusted with providing the glue in the type of rapid overhaul taking place at dozens of Division I programs following the NCAA rule change allowing players to transfer once without sitting out a season.

“The decision coming back—I’m not going to say it was the easiest, I had a lot of different options,” Ray said. “But Speedy’s my guy. He broke it down (for me). It was the smartest decision to make. I feel comfortable with it.”

Five of Hofstra’s newcomers are transfers—guards Zach Cooks (New Jersey Tech), Darlinstone Dubar (Iowa State) and Aaron Estrada (Oregon) and forwards Abayomi Iyiola (Arkansas) and Jarrod Simmons (Pennsylvania)—which will have Claxton relying on Ray, a preseason All-CAA first-teamer, and sophomore Kvonn Cramer, an honorable mention selection, to help ease their transition.

“Having those two guys who I’m familiar with, it helps because they have trust in me and they relay that trust to the others,” Claxton said. “We have a bunch of new players and those two guys, we depend on them for their leadership.”

The style of play will also be a bit different for Hofstra, which was picked fifth and was one of six teams to receive a first-place vote in preseason balloting.

As has been the case since Claxton’s playing days, Hofstra’s fate will be determined by its guards. Ray is the lone sure starter in a group that includes junior point guard Caleb Burgess, who led the CAA in assists and ranked ninth in minutes played last season.

Omar Silverio, entering his third season at Hofstra after transferring from Rhode Island, is a streaky shooter who can provide some instant offense off the bench. Cooks and Silverio each drained a trio of 3-pointers in Saturday’s intrasquad scrimmage. 

“They’re all going to bring different things,” Claxton said. “Zach and Aaron can both really score the basketball. Aaron was the MAAC rookie of the year (at Saint Peter’s before transferring to Oregon). Zach had an unbelievable career over at NJIT. So adding those two guys to the roster with Jalen Ray—our guard trio’s going to be really good. All those guys are going to be able to play off of each other.”

Claxton said the Pride’s rotation could go as many as 10 deep, which would be a dramatic change from the philosophies of Mihalich and Mike Farrelly, who served last season as interim head coach with Mihalich out on medical leave. With Mihalich and Farrelly only regularly subbing out the centers for one another, Hofstra’s had multiple players average at least 30 minutes per game in each of the last eight seasons.

The five-spot will likely be split early on between Simmons and Iyiola. Simmons—who is pictured along with Ray on the Hofstra schedule poster distributed at Saturday’s scrimmage—arrives three years after Hofstra won the CAA regular season title with Penn transfer Dan Dwyer forming a 1-2 punch at the five with Jacquil Taylor.

The Pride will also play plenty of man-to-man after Mihalich and Farrelly oversaw a zone defense. Most of Saturday’s scrimmage featured feisty half-court defense, with Claxton and his staff barking out orders. 

“Talk, talk, talk, talk,” Claxton said during the first half Saturday. “You’re going to have to talk to play defense.”

The Claxton imprint will be delivered with one very familiar element—the stoicism he’s displayed since arriving as a freshman in the fall of 1996. He echoed Mihalich by fashioning a CEO-type role during the practice prior to Saturday’s scrimmage, when Claxton patrolled the area around midcourt between the 3-point circles.

Claxton is inheriting a far different, yet no less challenging task, than the one presented in 2013 to Mihalich—who overtook a program that had won 17 games the previous two seasons while dealing with a spate of off-court issues. Under Mihalich, Hofstra won three regular season titles and made a pair of NIT appearances before winning the conference tournament Mar. 10, 2020, two days before the NCAA Tournament was canceled.

Now, it’s Claxton’s job to maintain and improve upon that legacy, at the school where he and the basketball program have already been intertwined for decades.

“It truly is another dream come true,” Claxton said. “Back when I decided to come here, this was the ultimate goal—to come back and lead this program. I’m thankful for the opportunity that I get a chance to do that right now.”