The first time Holy Cross and Bucknell met up this year, the Crusaders won 65-60 on Jan. 12. The second time, in Lewisburg, the Bison pulled out a 48-45 victory. The stars of the combined two games were Keith Simmons, who scored 37 points in the two contests, and Justin Castleberry, who scored 26 points coming off the bench in both games.

No. 8 Lafayette at No. 1 Holy Cross
At Lafayette: Holy Cross downed the Leopards 84-74 as Keith Simmons dropped 26 points and Torey Thomas added 18. Bilal Abdullah led Lafayette 22 points. Holy Cross shot 9-of-15 from three.
At Holy Cross: The Crusaders trounced Lafayette 74-52. Four Crusaders scored in double figures. Highlights for Lafayette were Abdullah and Jesper Andersson hitting 3 threes apiece.

It’s an odd way to compare classes, but there’s no easier apples-to-apples comparison among classes than to look at postseason honors. To the naked eye, it’s obvious that this graduating senior class in the Patriot League is special. How special? To find out, I delved into the history of the Patriot League, and looked at All-League selections and Player of the Year since the 1990-1991 debut of the league.

The Patriot League won’t award its automatic NCAA Tournament bid until Friday, March 9. However, conference tournament play begins tonight in the Big South, so the Seed Watch is beginning using the same methodology for projecting the Patriot League representative as is used for the other conferences: the highest rated/seeded team still alive. The “Enemies” list is done with this in mind, however the “Allies” list won’t appear until the Patriot League tournament final is played.

With each team having just two games left in the regular season, most have begun focusing on seeding and league tournament positioning. To that end, this is a breakdown of potential scenarios this week and what they will mean for the tournament.