Nobody knew it at the time, but Hofstra’s run to the CAA Tournament championship in March contained one telling statistic and one telling image regarding Tareq Coburn’s future role with the team.

Coburn went to the line a combined 13 times in Hofstra’s first two tournament wins over Drexel and Delaware — the most free throws the sharp-shooting outside threat ever attempted in a two-game span. The number is a bit misleading, given he took 11 free throws against Delaware, but the latter total represented four more free throws than he’d hoisted in a single game.

A night later, after Northeastern’s Jason Strong scored the final basket of Hofstra’s 70-61 title game win, Coburn joined the most select of Flying Dutchmen/Pride fraternities by being the player who dribbled out the clock and flung the ball in the air as time expired and the school clinched an NCAA Tournament berth.

Of course, Hofstra and the 10 other schools to clinch an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament never got to dance because of the pandemic that caused the cancellation of March Madness less than 48 hours after the final buzzer sounded in Washington, D.C.

Nine tumultuous months later, the Pride is hoping to get a second chance at the NCAA Tournament behind Coburn, who appears to be joining a slightly larger but no less impressive club — players who spend their senior season emerging as offensive stars in a Joe Mihalich system.

The absence of Mihalich, who is on medical leave, only underscores how much has changed since Hofstra celebrated its first CAA championship. But most of the rest of the staff — led by acting head coach Mike Farrelly — has been with Mihalich since he arrived on campus in the spring of 2013, which means Coburn’s hot start is as much a Mihalich-ian rite of passage as the blossoming of Desure Buie was last season and the one-and-done star turns of graduate transfers Denton Koon and the late Zeke Upshaw were in 2015-16 and 2013-14, respectively.

Through six games, Coburn has helped fill the void left by the graduated duo of Buie and Eli Pemberton by averaging a team-high 18.7 points per game and shooting 35.8 percent from 3-point land, second on the Pride behind Jalen Ray. Coburn leads Hofstra in both 3-point attempts (53) and makes (19) while also collecting multiple assists in four games.

Last season, Coburn ranked fifth on the Pride in scoring (10.6 ppg) and third in 3-point percentage (39.3 percent) while posting multiple assists in seven games.

“This year is obviously a new expansion of my role,” Coburn said. “I’ve just been waiting for it, waiting to embrace it.”

The most notable parts of Coburn’s game, though, are his newfound consistency and previously unseen slashing ability.

While he had a hot spell snapped Saturday in a 77-69 loss to St. Bonaventure — Coburn was limited to nine points on 2-of-10 shooting, including 2-of-9 from beyond the arc — his season-opening six-game stretch is still the most prolific six-game stretch he’s had as a collegian.

In addition, in the four games prior to Saturday, Coburn shot 50 percent from the field (25-of-50) while twice scoring a career-high 28 points. Coburn entered this season with 14 four-game stretches in which he shot at least 50 percent from the field, but he never took more than 37 attempts in any of those spans.

Last season, with Buie and Pemberton usually forming a 1-2 punch, Coburn had a four-game stretch from Jan. 25 through Feb. 8 in which he scored, in order, 24 points, no points, 19 points, and five points. And in February 2019, as the NBA-bound Justin Wright-Foreman was vying for the national scoring title, Coburn had a three-game span in which he scored two points, 21 points and no points, respectively.

“I think (he) definitely (has) a little bit more confidence,” Farrelly said. “He knows how important of a part he is.”

The most important part of Coburn’s game might be his ability to get to the free throw line. The 6-foot-5 Coburn, who said he’s been relying on the shot fake from beyond the arc before driving the lane and seeking contact, has been credited with only 16 attempts from inside the 3-point line yet has attempted 46 free throws, which is almost as many trips to the charity stripe as Issac Kante (33 attempts) and Ray (18 attempts) combined.

“It’s definitely hard to guard somebody that can shoot the three and beyond and try to stop him from driving,” Coburn said. “I’m a big guard, too.”

Coburn’s 35 points from the line put him almost halfway to the 79 free throws he drained in 34 games last season. He entered Sunday ranked 19th in the nation in total points. Only seven players ahead of him scored a higher percentage of their points via the free throw.

“If I miss (and) go 0-for-6 one game, I’m not going to be productive, but I’m still going to do other things — I’m going to get rebounds, make assists and get to the basket,” Coburn said.

While Coburn is looking to join the company of Buie (who 618 points last year after scoring just 692 points in his first three-plus seasons), Koon (who scored 388 points for Hofstra after scoring 594 points in three seasons at Princeton) and Upshaw (who scored 655 points for the Pride after scoring 100 points in three seasons at Illinois State) as senior-year stars, his start has conjured up memories of two of Hofstra’s best players of the CAA era.

The bulk of Coburn’s points from the line were scored against Monmouth last Tuesday, when he was 14-of-16 on free throws, and against Iona on Dec. 5, when he was 13-of-17. Coburn is the first Hofstra player to take at least 16 free throws in at least two games since Juan’ya Green, who had three such games in a 43-game span from Nov. 25, 2014, through Feb. 4, 2016, and won CAA Player of the Year honors as a senior in 2015-16.

The last Hofstra player to attempt at least 16 free throws in a game more than three times is Loren Stokes, who had five such games in his final three seasons, won CAA Player of the Year honors as a senior in 2006-07 and graduated as the school’s no. 2 all-time scorer.

That’s pretty good company for someone feeling pretty good about himself and his role as the latest Mihalich-era go-to senior.

“I feel like my teammates are definitely looking for me more,” Coburn said. “My coaches told me if you feel good, you feel like it’s a good shot, just shoot it. So there’s definitely no hesitation in my game now.”

Jerry Beach has covered Hofstra sports since arriving on campus in the fall of 1993, when Wayne Chrebet was a junior wide receiver wearing No. 3, Butch van Breda Kolff was the men’s basketball coach for the East Coast Conference champions and Jay Wright was a little-known yet surely well-dressed UNLV assistant coach. Check out Jerry’s book about the 2000 World Series here and follow him on Twitter at @JerryBeach73.