Emma Von Essen, Hofstra women's basketball want to prove CAA coaches wrong
Emma Von Essen (with ball) is a top returning player for Hofstra women’s basketball in 2023-24 season. Credit: Rafael Suanes/CAA/Hofstra Athletics
Two things can be true simultaneously.
Take, for instance, how the Coastal Athletic Association’s women’s basketball coaches view the Hofstra Pride.
The coaches picked the Pride to finish 12th in the 14-team conference in the preseason polls. And to hear sophomore guard Emma Von Essen, it is both insulting and something akin to a gift.
Because the Pride now have something to prove.
“I kind of like it in a way because people are doubting us so you’re going to prove them wrong no matter what,” Von Essen told Newsday after a recent practice. “It’s kind of offensive when [the other coaches in the conference] see my name and my teammates’ names and they say, ‘No. They’re there. They’re going to be down on the list.’ I don’t like that.”
Although the Pride are coming off a 2022-23 season in which they compiled a 12-20 record, Von Essen and head coach Danielle Santos Atkinson believe the current iteration will earn respect from opponents.
“We’re going to be better,” Santos Atkinson said. “I believe in this team and I believe in the players that are returning. All of them have raised their level and they’re playing at a very high level. …So I think we’re going to be competitive in the league. I do. I mean, we’re picked 12th, 13th, right? But we’re going to be competitive. We are going to be competitive. We are going to come into league play kicking and screaming and punching. And we’re going to make it tough on our opponent every night.”
How so?
According to Santos Atkinson, she looks at the 2023-24 Pride as an athletic, versatile squad that has the capability to be disruptive defensively and play up-tempo basketball offensively.
Think of them as a souped-up car. And the engine for the restored Pride? Von Essen.
The former Long Island Lutheran star is coming off a freshman season in which she played in all 32 games — starting 25 — and averaged 7.5 points per game. Both Von Essen and Santos Atkinson said the Rockville Centre product will have more responsibility this season.
“I know I need to score if we’re going to win,” Von Essen said. “But also I have a lot of experience at point guard so I love setting teammates up and playmaking and the IQ stuff.”
Theoretically, the 2023-24 Pride check off a lot of boxes. But the aspect that Santos Atkinson seems most enamored by is their collective willingness to work on and off the clock to prove that they are better than what the conference’s coaches think.
“They’re,” Santos Atkinson said, “hungry.”