Hofstra has D-I men’s basketball’s longest winning streak, and La Salle-bred coach Joe Mihalich is loving it

Hofstra owns the longest current winning streak in Division I men’s basketball at 15 games, and Joe Mihalich is enjoying the ride.

“You’ve got to enjoy it,” the Pride head coach and La Salle graduate said Friday. “Rather than let it be the elephant in the room, we said, ‘What the hell? Everybody else is talking about it; why don’t we talk about it?’

“We talk about it because we know it might be over tomorrow. We’re going to play a team that, it seems like they get every rebound. So it could be over tomorrow and we know it. But like I keep saying, enjoy it and try to have no regrets when and if this thing ever ends.”

The Pride (18-3, 8-0 CAA), who will play Saturday at Towson, kept the streak alive Thursday night with an 85-68 victory at James Madison. They took over the “nation’s longest” honor a week ago after the last two undefeated teams, Michigan and Virginia, went down.

Senior guard Justin Wright-Foreman, last year’s CAA player of the year, is having another outstanding season, averaging 26.0 points (third in Division I) and shooting 50.8 percent overall, 41.5 percent from three and 88.4 percent from the line. He is 75 points short of 2,000 for his career, and that’s counting the fact he scored just 44 as a freshman.

“He’s just a fearless, fearless scorer,” Mihalich said. “He just has no inhibitions. He has this incredible belief in himself that he can score. Then he’s blessed with physical tools: He’s a terrific athlete, as strong as can be, terrific hands.”

Two other mainstays of the team are junior guard Eli Pemberton (15.5 points per game) and senior guard Desure Buie (5.1 assists, 2.3 steals).

Now in his sixth season at Hofstra, Mihalich, 62, played his college ball from 1974 through 1978 and returned to La Salle three years later to begin a 17-year stint as an assistant coach under Dave “Lefty” Ervin and Speedy Morris. He was there when Lionel Simmons won national player-of-the-year honors.

That was fun, and so is this.

“It’s incredible,” he said. “It feels good. I’m so happy for Hofstra and obviously our kids, too.”

All the early talk about the Big East had been about how balanced the conference was, but this is ridiculous.

A look before Friday night’s game between Butler and Creighton shows eight of the 10 Big East teams with four losses, all of them under .500, behind Villanova (6-0) and Marquette (6-1). Such a look warns of possible disappointment when the NCAA Tournament bids are handed out in less than two months, but there is two-thirds of the season remaining.

“I think our league is as competitive as ever,” Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski said. “I can’t speak for Villanova, but we very easily could be a .500 team. We’ve been fortunate to make some critical plays late in games. But our league is ultra-competitive and with the true round robin, I think teams are getting better.

“The overall health of our league is really good, and there are a lot of games left to be played. I think at the end, in March, we’re going to have great representation.”

Since the reorganization of the Big East, the conference has sent at least six teams to the tournament three times, including last year, with a high of seven teams in 2016-17.

Notre Dame has struggled this season on the basketball court. The Fighting Irish are tied for last place in the ACC with a 1-5 record and have scored at least 70 points in only one of those six games.

If that isn’t bad enough for coach Mike Brey, he will see two of the best teams in the nation, No. 3 Virginia and No. 2 Duke, visit South Bend for games Saturday and Monday.

“We know we’ve got a heck of a challenge Saturday and Monday, but that’s why these kids came to Notre Dame, to play in this league and to play in big games like this,” Brey said Wednesday night after a 63-61 loss to Georgia Tech.

Two of the Fighting Irish’s key performers, senior Rex Pflueger and freshman Robby Carmody, are out for the season with injuries. Junior forward John Mooney is one of four major-conference players in the nation to average a double-double, 14.4 points, 10.8 rebounds.

“We’ve got nothing to lose,” Brey said. “There’s really not much expectations on this team since we lost Pflueger and those guys, so let’s just let it rip and play.”

Loyola of Chicago was, hands down, the story of last year’s NCAA Tournament when the Ramblers made the Final Four accompanied by 98-year-old Sister Jean.

But the Cinderella story has ended. The Ramblers lost Wednesday night to Missouri State, 70-35. They scored only 11 points in the second half, had but four players attempt a field goal in the first 34 minutes, and pulled down just nine rebounds.

“I don’t think I’ve ever lost a game like this,” Loyola coach Porter Moser said after the game.

Jonathan Lawton, a graduate of Friends' Central, is the leading scorer for Florida Southern, a Division II school in Lakeland, Fla. The 6-foot-2 senior guard is averaging 21.8 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists for the Moccasins and has shot well from distance (44.8 percent on three-pointers). On Wednesday night, he scored 21 of his 29 points in the second half to help his team rally from a 24-point deficit and post an 86-83 victory over Saint Leo.

Virginia at Notre Dame, Saturday at 1 p.m., CBS3: The Cavaliers bounced back from their first loss of 2018-19 by allowing just 45 points to Wake Forest and getting 11 points, seven rebounds and five assists from De’Andre Hunter (Friends' Central). The Fighting Irish are having trouble scoring.

Rutgers at Penn State, Saturday at 4:30 p.m., Big Ten Network: If there’s one team that needs a win, it’s the Nittany Lions, who are 0-8 in the Big Ten after a one-point loss to Minnesota. The Scarlet Knights have two conference wins but also own the lowest NET ranking of any league team.

Kansas at Kentucky, Saturday at 6 p.m., ESPN: This is the marquee matchup in the annual SEC/Big 12 Challenge, and the Wildcats are on a roll with five straight victories. The Jayhawks, who are just 1-3 on the road, have gotten 13 double-doubles in 19 games from forward Dedric Lawson.

Michigan State at Purdue, Sunday at 1 p.m., CBS3: The Boilermakers have won four games in a row since losing, 77-59, to the Spartans on Jan. 8 and are led by Carsen Edwards, who is fourth in the nation with a 24.7-point average. The Spartans outrebound opponents by 11.1 per game.

Tennessee at South Carolina, Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., SEC Network: The Volunteers barely escaped with an overtime win at Vanderbilt in their first game as the season’s newest No. 1 team. The Gamecocks are a surprising 5-1 in the SEC, one game behind the Vols, after upsetting No. 16 Auburn.

Grant Williams, Tennessee, F, 6-7, 236, Jr., Charlotte, N.C.

Williams scored a career-high 43 points in the top-ranked Volunteers' overtime victory Wednesday night over Vanderbilt, a performance in which he went 23-for-23 from the free-throw line. The foul shooting was a program record, and he became only the second player in Division I history to go 23-for-23 or better from the line.

Williams’ 43 points were the most by a Tennessee player since Allan Houston scored 43 against Louisiana State in 1990. For the season, Williams is averaging 20.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists and shooting 56.9 percent from the field and 84.6 percent on free throws.

The story was edited to correct the spelling of Mike Lawton’s name.