longest tournament drought of the four teams<\/a>, enjoyed a final meal at the clam bar off campus before conquering the Coastal Athletic Association in Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe catered them that whole week,\u201d Pepi said. \u201cTheir blood was literally pumping with sweet sauce on the court.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pepi may not be pouring it on thick in saying their food is a good omen. It was a regular rite of passage for away NHL teams to stop in before playing the Islanders at their old home of the nearby Nassau Coliseum for luck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s weird. We have a good record of people coming in, and then the next night they end up winning,\u201d Pepi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Superstition or not, the red sauce joint is home away from home for the athlete A-list like Don Mattingly, Tom Seaver, Bobby Nystrom and Joe Namath.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no different for Claxton, St. John\u2019s Rick Pitino or LIU coach, and former Knick, Rod Strickland \u2014 each of whom has their own name plate at booths and tables like the many other celebs, including Chazz Palminteri and Hillary Duff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hofstra basketball outside Vincent\u2019s Clam Bar in Carle Place. Hofstra Athletics<\/p>\n
Their respective programs and Adelphi also have their own plates at the famous Long Island eatery, and Pitino loved his personal one so much that he took it home, Pepi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Red Storm enjoyed red sauce at Vincent\u2019s during last year\u2019s Selection Sunday watch party and are running it back for a second year in a row, this time in Queens for the Big East regular season champs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vincent\u2019s plans to feed Hofstra Sunday dinner on campus this year as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s anything like last year was, this is going to be electric,\u201d Pepi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staying hungry\u00a0<\/p>\n
Post-practice, the athletes go through trays of food \u201clike thoroughbreds,\u201d according to Marisi, who said they have to bring food for 50 to quell 30 ravenous players and staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of guys do alfredo, a lot of guys do plain, grilled chicken with mixed veggies,\u201d Pepi said. \u201cSometimes they\u2019ll mix it up, and they\u2019ll do a steak.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for Pitino, Claxton, Strickland and Adelphi coach Dave Duke, their orders are unanimous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the chicken parm, hands down,\u201d Pepi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The winning coaches don\u2019t stray from the game plan, except for sometimes tossing in a Caesar salad and penne alla vodka as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Popular plates are photographed at Vincent\u2019s Clam Bar. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post<\/p>\n
Pitino likes his red sauce on the sweet and mild side, while Claxton has been dabbling with the spicier stuff lately, according to the manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I go in there, I don\u2019t have to state my order,\u201d said Claxton, who finishes off his meal with a delectable hot brownie \u00e0 la mode.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Claxton also showed love to another Italian favorite of his since returning home with the nets cut down \u2014 Robke\u2019s in Northport, which gave the former Spurs NBA champ and Hofstra player a hero\u2019s welcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs he walked through the dining room, everyone just started going completely nuts,\u201d owner Louie Selvaggio said of the Thursday night hysteria.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole place was basically giving him a standing ovation. Then he came back for an encore and was clapping with everyone. It was insane, literally insane.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s their lucky parm!\u00a0 March Madness-bound St. John\u2019s, Hofstra and Long Island University have a secret weapon behind…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":654197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2076,277415,70905,6084,7834,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,30692,62,1378,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-654196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-college-basketball","tag-hofstra-pride","tag-hofstra-university","tag-long-island","tag-nassau-county","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-rick-pitino","tag-sports","tag-st-johns-red-storm","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116225492079757270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}