Patriot League Notebook
Where has the season gone? Just seven short weeks ago, the Patriot League season was just beginning and every team had their eyes on the Patriot League title. But after Wednesday’s games, there remains only one day of regular season play before the Patriot League Tournament begins on March 4. Next week, I’ll take a look back (somewhat reluctantly) at my preseason predictions; this week, I’ll recap the week that saw some tournament positions become finalized, while others just became even messier.
Crusaders Clinch League Title
After a year of mediocrity, the Holy Cross Crusaders are back atop the Patriot League. With one game remaining in the regular season, Holy Cross clinched the top seed with wins over Colgate on Saturday and second-place Bucknell on Wednesday. The win against the Bison avenged the team’s only loss of the Patriot League season up to this point, a drubbing at the hands of the Bison in the two teams’ league opener. Winners of 13 consecutive games, the team looks as strong as ever, as the team prepares for the Patriot League Championships. And with the new tournament set-up this season, the road to the NCAA Tournament surely looks to go through Worcester.
Bucknell Locks Up Second Seed
The Bison, despite losing to Holy Cross on Wednesday evening, locked up the second seed and the home court advantage through the semifinals that goes with it with a win over Army and a Lehigh loss to Navy. The Bison, who headed into the 2004-2005 schedule as the preseason favorite to win the league title, will have to settle for second place instead. As mentioned, the team will still host the first two rounds of its pod of the tournament bracket.
Three-Way For Third
With one game to go in the season, there are three teams – Lehigh, American and Colgate – sporting identical 7-6 league records. This, folks, may cause a problem. Assuming that all three teams win on Saturday (which, granted, is a very large assumption on my part), then the tiebreaker would go all the way down the list to highest RPI according to the latest edition of the Collegiate Basketball News. At last check, American had the best RPI (154), followed by Colgate (227) and Lehigh (238). However, Colgate does play – by far – the strongest of the three teams on Saturday, Bucknell. If all three teams win on Saturday, there will surely be some number-crunching going on in all three locker rooms.
Players of the Week
Andre Ingram and Jason Thomas, American
On Saturday against Lafayette, Ingram scorched the Leopards for 37 points on 14-of-23 shooting. On Wednesday, it was Thomas’ turn, as the senior guard scored a career-high 27 points in a big win over Lehigh. The two American guards are the sole reasons why American is currently in a third-place tie with Lehigh and Colgate.
Rookie of the Week
Corey Johnson, Navy
The Anderson, Ind., native averaged nine points, three rebounds and 2.5 steals in two big Midshipmen wins over Lehigh and Lafayette.
Team Recaps
Holy Cross Crusaders (12-1 PL, 21-5 overall)
Yawn. Another Patriot League title for the Crusaders. There’s not much else left to say, other than “Congratulations on a well-deserved title.”
In a tough match-up on Saturday against Colgate, two unheralded seniors played vital roles in yet another Crusader victory. Greg Kinsey scored a season-high 14 points, while John Hurley made his mark on the defensive end, grabbing seven rebounds and swatting away four Raider shots in the team’s 59-46 win. The Crusaders won despite the team’s second-poorest shooting night of the season (only 32 percent from the floor), thanks in large part to the team’s defense: Holy Cross held Colgate to under 30 percent shooting, the second-lowest percentage for a Crusader opponent this season (but then again, does Army really count?). What does matter, however, was the impressive offensive performance of Kinsey and the understated defensive effort put forth by Hurley.
The title was officially clinched on Wednesday in front of a hometown Hart Center crowd. The winning streak was also extended to 13 games in the team’s 69-54 win over Bucknell. The Bison kept it close for most of the game, but a decisive 12-2 run late in the second half gave the Crusaders the cushion they needed. Hamilton led the team with 16 points, as five Crusaders notched double figures in scoring – Kinsey, Hurley, Keith Simmons and Torey Thomas were the others. In an odd twist, the Crusaders, who came into the game with the lowest free throw shooting percentage in the league (64 percent), converted 20-of-22 attempts from the charity stripe against the Bison.
With the two victories, the Crusaders came relax on Saturday as the team honors its five seniors on Senior Day against Army. The team, of course, will want to keep its winning streak alive headed into the league tournament, and so I expect them to play well against the Black Knights – then again, the Crusaders may win without their starters, anyways.
Bucknell Bison (9-4 PL, 18-9 overall)
With one win and a Lehigh loss, the Bison secured the second position headed into the postseason tournament.
On Tuesday, Bucknell played a rare late-season non-league game against Villanova… and probably wished that it hadn’t. The Bison felt the Wildcat barrage early and could never recover, losing by a score of 89-51. Chris McNaughton tried to carry the team in the first half, scoring 14 of his team’s 28 points, but the Bison were no match for the Big East squad. Looking for some of the magic that knocked off Pittsburgh earlier in the season, Bucknell instead found Wildcat shots raining down on them throughout, with the final 38-point deficit being the game-high for the home Villanova squad.
Returning to some much easier competition, the Bison secured no worse than second place in the league on Saturday by defeating Army, 69-55. The team won despite having two starters – McNaughton and Abe Badmus – play very limited minutes due to illness. Charles Lee (team-high 22 points) and Kevin Bettencourt (14 points) led the way in the duo’s absence, while the team relied on some terrible Army shooting in the opening half and a big second-half run to defeat the Black Knights. With the win, Bucknell assured itself of hosting one of the two pods of the Patriot League Tournament – and ensured that it would avoid Holy Cross until the league title game, if it got to that point.
Against the Crusaders, the Bison were plagued by poor shooting for most of the contest. The team shot just 37 percent from the field for the game, but still would not go away until very late in the contest. In a game that wasn’t very important to the Bison (assuming Holy Cross will beat Army on Saturday, that is), John Griffin led Bucknell with 15 points. Lee, who showed that he was over his illness, and Bettencourt each tallied 11 points on the evening for Bucknell, which could not manage a season sweep of Holy Cross (then again, join the club).
With not much to play for except pride, the Bison will welcome Colgate to Sojka Pavilion for Senior Day on Saturday, as the team honors its sole senior, forward Chris Niesz. That’s a scary thought – the entire team will be back again next season. But that is a topic for the end-of-the-season recap.
American Eagles (7-6 PL, 13-12 overall)
Left for dead last week, American rebounded with a huge win over Lehigh on Wednesday night to propel itself into a three-way tie for third place.
The struggles continued for American on Saturday, as the team forced overtime but eventually fell to Lafayette, 93-89. Andre Ingram scored a game-high 37 points for the visiting Eagles on 14-of-23 shooting, while Jason Thomas added 18 on 8-of-19 shooting, but the rest of the team was unable to make any meaningful contributions down the stretch – save for a key bucket by Linas Lekavicius with two seconds left that sent the game into overtime. As usual, the team used mainly a seven-man rotation against the Leopards and, as a team that has shown signs of wearing down as of late, an overtime game – especially a loss – was not what Jeff Jones and his crew needed.
But a game with the importance of American-Lehigh seemed to provide all the energy the Eagles needed on Wednesday, as the team took home a 65-61 win. Much like Ingram did against Lafayette, Thomas carried the heavy load for American against the Mountain Hawks, scoring a career-high 27 points on 10-of-15 shooting. In the last two games, Ingram and Thomas have proven themselves to clearly be the only two reliable scoring options for the Eagles, which may be a hindrance come tournament time as defenses clamp down on the two high-flyers. But on this night, it was Thomas – along with the team’s 50 percent three-point shooting – that helped American shooting down the Hawks in the battle of the birds.
Suddenly re-energized, American will entertain Navy on Saturday in a must-win game for the Eagles. A win would secure the Eagles no lower than fourth place, and likely would keep them in the third position, depending on RPI changes. The team also would like to win on Senior Day for Thomas and the team’s four other seniors.
Colgate Raiders (7-6 PL, 12-14 overall)
The Raiders split their two games over the last five days, falling short against Holy Cross but overcoming the Black Knights in West Point for a big league victory.
The Raiders had their chances on Saturday but couldn’t knock off Holy Cross at Cotterell Court. The Crusaders jumped out to an early lead thanks to very sloppy Colgate play, as the Raiders missed easy lay-ups, threw away passes and looked very out of sync. The missed lay-ups led to a dismal 28 percent shooting afternoon – including only five field goals in the second half – which would have made the game a blowout, expect for the fact that Holy Cross kept Colgate in the game for most of the contest. When the HC began to play well down the stretch, however, Colgate was finally put down. Andrew Zidar scored 15 points and grabbed six rebounds in his final home game for the Raiders.
Colgate improved its record in its last five games to 4-1 with a 66-59 win over Army on Wednesday evening. The visitors came out strong in the first half, shooting 54 percent and entering the break with an 11-point edge. From there, the team held on to win thanks to four Raiders in double figures, led by Alvin Reed with 15 points. With the win and the season-sweep of Army, the Raiders stayed equal in all the tie-breakers with Lehigh and American, headed into the regular season finale on Saturday.
Of the three third-place teams, the Raiders have by far the toughest test on Saturday against second-place Bucknell. Colgate lost to the Bison by only two points at Cotterell Court in mid-January, but now the Raiders must venture onto the road – a place unkind to Colgate this season – and snatch away a victory. A loss, meanwhile, would likely drop the team down to fifth place in the standings.
Lehigh Mountain Hawks (7-6 PL, 13-13 overall)
With a chance to clinch the third position in the Patriot League, the Mountain Hawks stumbled twice. Thanks to the two losses, the team is tied up in a three-team race for third place and suddenly needs a win and some help to finish in the top three.
Lehigh suffered a very disappointing 76-75 loss to Navy on Saturday afternoon, making its hold on the third position much more tenuous headed into its final two games. The Mountain Hawks were plagued by poor shooting in the first half (29 percent), and the struggles continued for most of the second stanza. But despite being down by 10 points with 2:45 left, the team came back and had a chance to win the game in the final seconds, but Nick Monserez missed a game-winning three pointer and the Hawks fell. A win would have kept the team in contention for second place in the league, but instead the team crept in the other direction with two games to play.
Going head up against the Eagles, four Mountain Hawks scored in double figures but it was not enough to take a victory from the visiting Eagles. Jose Olivero led the way with 19 points, but senior Monserez may have frozen up on Senior Night, shooting 0-for-6 from the field for zero points. As with the game against Navy, Lehigh fell behind and then attempted to come back, but once again the team was unable to make the complete comeback. Fellow senior Earl Nurse scored 12 points and grabbed six rebounds in his final game in front of the Stabler Arena faithful.
With a win a necessity for the Mountain Hawks, the team travels to Easton on Saturday for its annual rivalry game with Lafayette. The Hawks will also need an American loss to take the third seed, so winning against their archrival still might not be enough to salvage a terrible end to the season for Billy Taylor and crew.
Navy Midshipmen (5-8 PL, 9-17 overall)
The Middies are suddenly on a little bit of a hot streak, winning two games over Lehigh and Lafayette to secure themselves the sixth slot in the upcoming league tournament.
Five Middies in double figures helped the team along in its Saturday afternoon upset over Lehigh. Navy had superior shooting numbers and lead for most of the game, but the team nearly gave the game away down the stretch by missing its free throws. Corey Johnson, who had a solid game with 10 points, missed two free throws with 14 seconds left that gave Lehigh the chance to win the game, but a Nick Monserez miss bailed out the Middies at Stabler Arena. Matt Fannin led the team with 16 points, while Greg Sprink also had a solid game with seven points and 13 rebounds.
To say Navy rebounded well on Wednesday would be an understatement. The Middies tied school and Patriot League records for rebounds in a game with 71 in the team’s 76-57 win over Lafayette. The one negative for the game for Navy was the fact that the 71 rebounds were needed because the team launched up 84 shots in 40 minutes, and making only 28 of them. Despite that fact, Navy dominated most areas of the game and must be feeling good headed into the final weekend of the regular season. In his final home game, Taj Mathews scored a game-high 24 points to lead the Middies to a well-deserved victory.
With its sixth spot all locked up, Navy will look to play spoiler on Saturday when it travels to Washington, D.C., to take on American in the regular season finale.
Lafayette Leopards (4-9 PL, 8-18 overall)
Despite a spirited victory over American on Saturday, with a loss to Navy, the Leopards settled into the seventh slot for the upcoming league tournament, meaning the team will be traveling to Bucknell for its first round matchup.
Jamaal Hilliard and Marcus Harley both reached career highs in points on Saturday afternoon as the Leopards held off American in overtime, 93-89. Hilliard scored 23 points – including 11-of-11 shooting from the free throw line – and Harley added 22 of his own, leading five Leopards in double figures. Hilliard, who entered the game in the top 10 in the nation in free throw shooting, will certainly see that number rise after a stellar performance, which included two big free throws near the end of regulation and two more at the end of overtime to ice the game. The five Leopards in double figures also matched a season-high.
With a chance to take over the sixth position, the Leopards came out shooting well in the first half but collapsed offensively in the final 20 minutes, hitting only six field goals in that span – compared to 16 for Navy. Bilal Abdullah led the team in scoring for the first time in a long time with 14 points, but the team was so thoroughly dominated on the glass that it had absolutely no chance to win this game. The effort was disappointing, since the team had the chance to avoid Bucknell in the first round of the tournament, and now the team has to figure out whether a complete Lafayette team will ever show up to a game.
The team will certainly get up for its season-ending game against archrival Lehigh, during which the team will honor senior co-captains Jamie Hughes and Sean Knitter. With nothing to play for but pride, expect a solid showing for the Leopards on Saturday as they tune up for tourney time.
Army Black Knights (1-12 PL, 3-22 overall)
Finally, some good news for Army: the regular season is just about over. With two more losses, the team’s losing streak increased to seven in a row and 15 of its last 16, as the team continues to hope for some sort of miracle that would give the Knights a win.
The Black Knights continued their run at futility on Saturday, falling to Lafayette by 14 points. As usual, Matt Bell led the way for the Knights, scoring a game-high 23 points, but the big surprise was that Army out-rebounded only its second league opponent this season. The team was led by seven caroms for Erik Engstrom, who came into the game with all of seven rebounds in 11 games. Of course, the team didn’t actually win the game, but then again, this team needs some reason (however small) to celebrate.
Against the Raiders, Army received support from Bell, Jarell Brown and Cory Sinning – and nobody else. The trio scored all but 12 of the team’s 59 points in the loss to Colgate, as the team simply could not overcome a very slow start; Army fell behind early and couldn’t fully recover, never taking a lead in the contest. The team kept fighting in the second half, dwindling the lead down to three with 17 seconds left, but solid Raider free-throw shooting sealed the win. Ray Fredrick was the lone senior for Army, but did not see action in the team’s final home game of the season.
As has been known for a long, long time, Army will be the lowest seed in the league tournament. But before traveling to Holy Cross for the tournament, the team must go to Worcester for the regular season finale on Saturday in what promises to be a preview of coming attractions.
