The quote, contained in a press release, was both poignant and perfect. Friday afternoon, Hofstra officially announced Joe Mihalich will transition from being its men’s basketball coach to being special adviser to the athletic director.

Mihalich didn’t coach the Pride this winter. His health wouldn’t allow it. So the final memory we have of Mihalich the coach is a beautiful one: cutting down the final shards of netting at the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Washington, D.C., last March 10, after Hofstra had defeated Northeastern, 70-61, in the finals of the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament.

It was a terrific climax to Mihalich’s seven years at Hofstra, which began with a 10-23 rebuilding slog in 2013-14, his first year, and culminated with back-to-back records of 27-8 and 26-8 his last two seasons. The 2019 season ended with a gut punch, an 82-74 loss to Northeastern in the CAA finals.

Last year, the Pride got their revenge. They’d be going back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001. And Mihalich would be returning there for the first time since 2007, when he took Niagara for the second time in three years.

Of course, the story took a wicked turn for the lads from Hempstead, the same as it did for the NCAA title aspirants in Dayton, the same as it did for the hungry Jersey contingent from Rutgers, the same as it had for the entire sport of college basketball. Two days after Mihalich tugged that net off the rim, sports in this country began to systematically shut down. The NCAA Tournament was canceled. Hofstra wouldn’t get to dance in the Dance.

It was an awful moment.

But it also allowed for something else: Almost nobody ends a season with a win except the national champion and the winner of the NIT; the 2019-20 Hofstra Pride won the last game of their season, and the record book will reflect that forever.

And Joseph Anthony Mihalich went out a winner, also.

“I always said to my son and my team, ‘END ON A MAKE!’ ” Mihalich said in Friday’s press release, echoing the age-old law of the playground: never walk away until you swish one for the road. “That’s what I did.”

That’s what he did. Mihalich managed to craft that rarest parlay among basketball lifers: a coach who won, a lot, and never forgot where he came from, never forgot how to be a regular guy, never forgot the thrill and opportunity of getting to coach a great game for a living.

And make no mistake: Mihalich was a great coach. At Niagara, he’d taken over the ruins of a once-proud team that had fallen on hard times, and he transformed it immediately: 17-12 his first year, 265-203 overall, four regular-season MAAC titles, two NCAA bids. He did the same thing at Hofstra, 141-92 those first seven years, three CAA regular-season crowns.

And that wonderful night last March. Long after midnight that night, a text arrived, and it was essential Mihalich, responding to a congratulatory note:

“Mike … what a night! Great kids, GREAT kids, who play well together. They’re easy to coach. Now let’s get the Bonnies in the tournament too!”

With Mihalich it was always about his players, and it was always about the person he was talking to. Only if you pressed him would he reveal, ever so reluctantly, a sliver of an ego, earned by so much success in so many trying circumstances.

And people responded. He was wildly popular at Hofstra. At Niagara, that first run to the NCAA’s — the school’s first in 35 years, since Calvin Murphy and Frank Layden — had been accompanied during a difficult period in the coach’s life, as his beloved mother, Dolores, battled cancer. After Niagara won, Mihalich made a beeline for Dolores, and the purple-clad fans at Buffalo’s HSBC Arena serenaded them with chants of “Thank you, Joe! Thank you, Joe!”

When Hofstra won the CAA last year, he received so many congratulatory texts, he said a few months later, “I thought someone had planted a bomb in my phone!”

When he took ill, that’s what happened to his friends’ phones. Everyone wanted updates. Everyone wanted to send thoughts, prayers, vibes, best wishes. And Friday, Mihalich said goodbye to coaching the best way he possibly could, with a money quote. With a make.

After three days of the NCAA Tournament, I think I am officially tired of Lily from AT&T. I will never tire of Dr. Rick, however. Nor, for that matter, of Tag Team scooping out ice cream and chocolate sauce.

A must-read companion piece for this time of the year is John Gasaway’s “Miracles on the Hardwood: The Hope-and-a-Prayer Story of a Winning Tradition in Catholic College Basketball.”

And on a related topic: Heartbreaking news learning that my grade school, St. Thomas the Apostle in West Hempstead, plans to close after this school year. Learned many things there, notably in the gym where my patented line-drive jumper was necessitated by a low ceiling and aided by the softest rims on Long Island. I shall stubbornly hold out hope someone in charge will change their mind about this.

It’s good to remember that in what’s been a difficult year, so many of our area sporting icons have stepped up and tried to do their part. Since July 27, for instance, 27 different Mets alumni have conducted Zoom calls with 25 different assisted living facilities, talking with 500 seniors who can’t have visitors.

Marty Gavin: Damn, this Knicks team is fun to watch — De-fense! De-fence! They really play ball like a team. Looks like a tight group on a mission.

Vac: To see them react like Hickory High after taking down South Bend Central even though the opponent was lowly Orlando — that was like a whole-team version of Magic hugging Kareem after his hook shot beat the Clippers the first night of Magic’s pro career.

Michael Reilly: I guess you are now a member of the Earl Grant fan club?

Vac: I think Boston College made an inspired choice, yes.

@MICHAEL21753620: Losing Anders Lee is a brutal blow for the Islanders. I hope he can come back to a reasonable semblance of what he was before the injury.

@MikeVacc: Just a shattering absence for a team that really looked ready to spend the rest of the regular season in overdrive.

Charles Costello: In New York, where other teams could rightfully lay claim, hard to think of a fan base more deserving of just one of those St. Bonaventure basketball seasons you write so glowingly about than the loyal alumni of Fordham. Like you with the Bonnies, this one’s personal for me. Godspeed to the good folks running the show at Rose Hill.

Vac: I look forward to making the pilgrimage to Rose Hill to cover an important game soon — and not just invading with my fellow Bonnies fans once a year.