What Hofstra coach Speedy Claxton said after NCAA Tournament loss to Alabama

TAMPA, Fla. — No. 4-seed Alabama defeated No. 13-seed Hofstra, 90-70, on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. After the postseason game, Pride head coach Speedy Claxton spoke to reporters at Benchmark International Arena. Here is everything Claxton said.

SPEEDY CLAXTON: Proud of my guys that we went out there and competed. Tough to win a game when you give up 17 offensive rebounds. For a team like us, in a tournament like this, we pretty much almost have to play perfect basketball. And today, we didn’t do that. We didn’t play well enough to win the game. Credit to Alabama. They were down a really good player. But overall, really thought my guys went out there and fought.

So proud of the effort.

Q. It’s hard at this moment sitting here. When you see what you did this year and you’ve got guys like Preston coming back, I’m assuming, hopefully Cruz, what do you look at?

SPEEDY CLAXTON: The future is bright. We’re going to bring those two guys back, build around them. They can be the foundation. I’m pretty sure if we bring them back, we’ll be preseason number one pick in the league, which doesn’t truly mean anything.

As long as those two guys continue to work on their game, which they will, and get better, the future will be bright here at Hofstra.

Q. Coach, when you’re preparing a team, you want to make sure there’s no stone unturned. How hard was it to know one of their best players isn’t playing, and you don’t know where those points are going to come from?

SPEEDY CLAXTON: Yeah. We knew — obviously, we knew that Holloway wasn’t going to be playing. But just like when one of our guys is down, it’s the next-man-up mentality.

So we knew somebody on their team was going to step up. Tonight, it was the 2 guard. He’s their best player. He just raised his game to the next level because Holloway was out.

So it’s not too surprising. He had a big second half for them. I think he only had eight in the first half, but then came out and I think had 21 in the second half. So definitely raised his game, and that was pretty much the difference in the second half.

Q. Coach, it feels like a theme this season has been taking a punch and giving a punch right back, whether it’s in the win-loss column or starting a game slow and picking up pace. What’s the message in the first time-out when you’re down by 6 and go on the huge run?

SPEEDY CLAXTON: Just to settle in. We had two crucial turnovers to start the game. I wanted to call that time-out to settle my guys in.

No different from the Monmouth game, we started off a little slow. So wanted to settle their nerves and refocus them. And then we started playing and went on a little run.

Q. Coach, I know there’s a lot of emotions right now, but how proud are you of this team and this journey you went on?

SPEEDY CLAXTON: Extremely proud. I knew we had a special time from day one. These guys, there wasn’t not one day in practice or a game that they didn’t compete. So extremely happy to have been able to coach this team this year.

We made history. We wanted to go further. But at the end of the day, we still did special things here.

Q. Speedy, you talk about bringing those guys back. It’s if, right? If they come back.

SPEEDY CLAXTON: Always if.

Q. I guess how much has changed since when you were a player when you could build a program like that and keep these guys coming back?

SPEEDY CLAXTON: The landscape is forever evolving. Hopefully, we are able to keep those two guys. It’s going to be our main focal point going into this offseason. So we’ll see. Like I said, the landscape is changing. We’ve got to roll with the punches, and we’ve got to just — adjust the best way we can.

Hopefully, those two guys will be back with us and we’ll be building around them.

Q. Confident you’ll get that done?

SPEEDY CLAXTON: I’m confident, but who knows? The season just ended. We haven’t even started thinking about that yet. We’ll take a week off and sit down with them, their mentors and kind of see where we’re at with things.

Q. Coach, three times in the second half, you got it to 5, but you couldn’t get that next stop to get it to one possession. Do you think if it would have been a one-possession game it would have turned out a little different? There’s a lot of pressure there now.

SPEEDY CLAXTON: Yeah, yeah. We got it down to 5 a couple times. Then they hit a big shot. Hats off to them. I truly believe we would have got the stop, got the rebound and maybe got a score, it would have changed things. I wish we could have seen that.

Not a member, Alabama fans? Join BOL today!

Have you subscribed to BamaOnLine.com yet? You can sign up for ONE MONTH of premium access to our Alabama coverage for just $11.99! Be able to read all of BOL’s premium articles and nuggets covering Alabama sports and recruiting, and also join thousands of other Crimson Tide fans around the globe on the BOL Round Table message board! CLICK HERE!