According to a post by Holy Cross’s Ralph Willard at CoachRalphWillard.com, Pat Doherty fractured his hand in practice and will miss 4 to 6 weeks. Willard also reported that Keith Simmons has been unable to practice due to a knee sprain suffered at Duke last week, and Lawrence Dixon has had trouble with his knee, which was operated on in September.

Slant: The Simmons injury is something to keep your eye on, as losing Simmons could sink the Crusaders. Fortunately for Holy Cross, they have only two games in the next two weeks (albeit big games against Providence and George Mason). Willard has the luxury of time off to give Simmons in anticipation of the conference schedule beginning.

Doherty’s injury should keep him out well into the start of Patriot League play, and creates a hole in the Crusader rotation. Later in the above-linked post, Willard stated an intention to play Alex Vander Baan at small forward a bit, while giving the freshmen power forwards more playing time. Another option is to use Colin Cunningham more in the backcourt, but Willard seems unwilling to do so this year (he is getting 13.7 minutes per game this year, after getting 16.0 per game last year). If Simmons and Dixon are both back to full strength when league play starts, watch for them to play together more often. Vander Baan is simply not a solution at the 3 lining up against 6-2 Andre Ingram and 6-4 Greg Sprink.

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