Hofstra women's basketball looking to build on CAA tournament success

Progress is never linear.

For Hofstra to go forward in 2024-25, the hope is that a four-hour plus trip spanning a bit more than 250 miles southwest to Washington D.C. last spring will be where the growing started.

“We want to build off of that,” Pride coach Danielle Santos Atkinson said during Hofstra’s availability at CAA Media Day, in response to a question about the program winning two games in the conference tournament in March.

The victories over Hampton in the first round (71-55) and William & Mary in the second (57-53) marked the first time since 2019 that the Pride had won two games in the same postseason tournament.

“It helped our team see what they were capable of,” Santos Atkinson said. “And to allow some of the messages that we had throughout the season to be able to ring true there at the end. Building on that, taking that [postseason run] into the summer and just understanding we’ve got to be willing to compete that hard a lot sooner in the season.”

Hofstra had won seven of its first 12 games last season. Then came a two-point loss to William & Mary that started an eight-game slide. After getting back on their feet, they ended the regular-season on a six-game losing streak.

In all, the Pride (11-21) lost 15-of-18 regular-season conference games. And rival CAA coaches are not especially keen on Hofstra’s prospects this season,   as the Pride was picked to finish 12th in the 14-team conference.

But to hear junior guard Emma Von Essen, there is an esprit de corps in Hempstead.

“Everyone’s on the same page,” said Von Essen, whose 11.6 points per gameled Hofstra last season. “We want to win a championship. And when we talk about the big games that we have–we’re going to Florida this year–everyone knows that it’s an opportunity to win. Nobody’s scared about that. We’re all Division I players. There’s only a small difference between you [and an opponent], like your height or stuff like that. We’re all on the same page. We really want to win.”

Ah, there’s the question. How does the program record its first winning season since 2015-16?

For Santos Atkinson, the answer is simple: Go. To. Work. Every. Day.

“Are they capable?” she asked, rhetorically. “Absolutely. Do we have the talent, the skill? We’ve got to be able to put it all together and, again, understand that it’s a journey and a process. We’ve got to work for that and work as champions every single day.”

It is a challenge that Von Essen readily accepted.

“I really got back to working on my skill work,”  she said. “I almost went back to my middle school, high school workouts where I didn’t even shoot really at all. It’s just all dribbling. I worked a lot on getting open and moving without the ball, too, because that was something I didn’t think I would need my sophomore year, but I did.”

She believes she is better equipped to counteract the various defensive looks opponents threw at her last season.

“It was really hard before games,” Von Essen said. “Because you know it’s going to happen and [you] kind of just have to put yourself in it before [tipoff] and just really think about it and work on it.”