Washington, D.C. – A 24-point first half deficit was too much to overcome as the third-seeded Hofstra men's basketball team fell to the sixth-seeded College of Charleston Cougars in the Colonial Athletic Association quarterfinals, 92-76.
 
Jalen Ray led three Hofstra players in double figures with 21 points (7-18) including five three-pointers, while Aaron Estrada followed with 19 points on a 7-of-17 effort from the field and Abayomi Iyiola went 5-of-8 overall and tallied 11 points. Estrada dished out a team-high six assists while Iyiola and Ray led Hofstra on the glass with five rebounds each. Hofstra finished the game shooting 42-percent from the floor while Charleston shot 55-percent from the field.
 
Charleston got off to a fast start over the Pride, scoring the first seven points of the contest before Estrada finally drained a step-back three at the 17:48 mark to put Hofstra on the scoreboard. After back-to-back buckets by Cooks and Ray at 13:51 and 13:03, the Cougars took control with a 17-1 run that lasted exactly five minutes, bringing the score to 36-13. Hofstra went six for its next eight from the field over the next three minutes of play, but the Cougars continued their hot shooting on the other end of the floor, making seven of their nine shots down to the 1:36 mark. Hofstra scored four of the final six points of the half, but Charleston had done some damage, carrying a 22-point advantage into the locker room, 55-33. Estrada had 12 points in the first half followed by Ray and Iyiola who tallied seven.
 
Hofstra showed some life to open up the second stanza with a 10-1 spurt while holding Charleston without a field goal for over three and a half minutes. Charleston knocked down a three to end the drought at 13:36, but Hofstra continued to chip away with back-to-back triples by Ray and Silverio, which trimmed the deficit to 12 and forced a Cougar time out with the score, 61-49. Ray and Silverio's three-pointers were the third and fourth in a two-minute span for the Pride.
 
Cooks cut Hofstra's lead down to 11 with an old-fashioned three-point play at 13:49, and after a made field goal by each team, the Pride caught fire and dropped a trio of three-pointers on three-straight possessions including one by Cooks and two by Ray, bringing things with seven, 70-63 with 10:56 remaining in the frame. The deficit was the smallest for the Pride since the 13:03 mark in the first half.
 
Jalen Ray knocked down his fifth three-pointer of the evening at 5:28, but the basket came in the midst of a 12-3 Charleston spurt that brought the Cougar lead back out to 18 with just over three minutes to go. Hofstra added two late field goals by Silverio and Estrada, and despite out-scoring the Cougars, 43-37 in the second half, Charleston was able to come away with the victory, 92-76.
 
Charleston's John Meeks finished as the game's leading scorer with 31 points on an 11-of-16 effort from the field.
 
Hofstra fell to 21-11 overall while Charleston improved to 17-14. The Cougars will meet #2 UNCW in the second of tomorrow's two CAA semifinal matchups.
 
Notes:
-Hofstra is now 9-8 all-time versus Charleston.
-Charleston pulled down 40 rebounds compared to Hofstra's 26
-Hofstra tallied 17 assists on 28 made field goals
-Hofstra suffered just 10 miscues, their 18th game this season with 10 turnovers or fewer