Hoffman Has Blossomed In Senior Year

When it comes to the leap forward that Shore Regional senior guard Zack Hoffman has made this season, the numbers don’t lie.  

After showing flashes of explosive scoring potential as a junior, Hoffman is doing it every night this season for a Blue Devils team that looks to be a sleeper in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group II Tournament. The 5-foot-10 guard is averaging 21.3 points per game this season, which ranks in the top five in the Shore Conference, and much of it can be attributed to improvement in two areas.  

“He's finishing around the rim a lot better,’’ said Shore coach Doug Shaw. “He’s gotten himself acclimated to the speed of the game better and improved his strength. Number two, he’s added range to his jump shot.’’  

Last season, Hoffman shot 18 percent from 3-point range, while this season his long-range accuracy has more than doubled to 41 percent.  

“I was trying to get as many shots up as I could,’’ Hoffman said about the offseason. “I had AAU every day of the week, and I was really working hard on my shot especially. Also, everything around the rim was getting easier. I worked on getting stronger, and I feel like I got a little bit quicker, and everything comes easier when you're a senior who's seen it all.’’  

Hoffman is also an 86 percent free throw shooter with close to 200 attempts, so he makes opponents pay for fouling him in the lane. The noticeable jump in his numbers across the board hasn’t exactly been ignored by opponents, either, as he has faced double teams and gimmick defenses like the triangle-and-two that Point Beach ran on Monday against Hoffman and junior teammate R.J. Bohnert.  

“I’ve been learning to trust my teammates more,’’ he said. “I’ve got to keep moving the ball when that happens. The shots will come and the ball will be in my hands, so I just look for the open man in that spot.’’  

Again, the numbers tell the story of Hoffman’s improvement in that area as the season has gone along. In Shore’s first 10 games, he averaged two assists per game, but in the last 10, that number is up to 3.5 per game.  

Hoffman is no stranger to playing more of a distributor role, as he said he is more of a pass-first point guard on his AAU team. That is a position that many of the colleges recruiting Hoffman also project him to play.  

“I know at the next level, I'm going to have to do a lot more at point guard,’’ he said. “Right now my team needs me to score more, so I’m trying to do it all as much as I can.’’  

“For any player, that's a tough adjustment to make, and he's done it,’’ Shaw said. “I think that's why you're seeing more colleges show interest in him. He has been refining his game on the fly.’’  

While Shore was eliminated from a berth in the Shore Conference Tournament with a loss to Point Beach on Monday, the Blue Devils should be proud that they even had a shot heading into the final week before the tournament. They started the season 0-4 and were 5-10 at one point, but rallied to get to 9-11 before falling to the Garnet Gulls and Rice University recruit Jarelle Reischel on Monday. That defeat dropped them three games below .500 with only two games remaining before the SCT cutoff in which teams need to be at least .500 to qualify.  

“It’s a credit to the kids,’’ Shaw said. “They could’ve quit at any of those points, but they stayed the course.’’  

“It was definitely hard knowing that things weren't going well in the beginning of the season,’’ Hoffman said. “But in practice, we have been getting after each other, and I still think we have the capability of beating good teams.’’  

Hoffman has received interest from Division II Molloy College in Rockville Centre, N.Y., and recently took a visit there. He also has interest from Division III Springfield (Mass.) College, and also has considered a year at a prep school as another option. Before he gets to all that, however, he would like to lead the Blue Devils to a Cinderella run in the state tournament.  

Teams do not have to be at .500 or better at the cutoff to qualify for the NJSIAA Tournament any more thanks to a rule change before last season. As long as teams are in the top 16 in their section, record-wise, they are eligible to enter the tournament in order to fill out the 16-team bracket. That means the Blue Devils will be part of the field in Central Jersey Group II, where they already have experience against multiple opponents in the section.  

Shore took the No. 1 seed, Raritan, to the wire in a one-point loss in a Class A Central game earlier this season, and also has a one-point loss to another top-four seed, Rumson-Fair Haven.  

“It's great, the position we're in,’’ Hoffman said. “We like the challenge of being the underdog. We know we can play with anybody, especially Raritan because it came down to a last-second shot.’’  

“Once we get in there, I think if we get on a roll, there's no reason why we can't win,’’ Shaw said.  

That would give Hoffman a chance to boost the one number that means more than anything when measuring improvement – wins.

(For more photos of Zack Hoffman click here.)