6 January, 2007
by Ryan Rissmiller
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1st |
2nd |
Final |
| Holy Cross (10-6) |
42 |
42 |
84 |
| Lafayette (6-10) |
35 |
39 |
74 |
| Kirby Sports Center – Easton, PA |
Boxscore |
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The Lafayette Leopards come back from their west coast trip to open up Patriot League play Saturday, falling to the Holy Cross Crusaders 84-74. Despite putting out a solid offensive performance against the tough Crusader defense, the Leopards were unable to overcome a 59.2-percent shooting performance from a hot Crusader team, who was led by star senior forward Keith Simmons with a season-high 26 points. Guard Torey Thomas added 18 and a game-high 6 assists.
The Leopards jumped out early and lead for the first 5 minutes of the game, uncharacteristically establishing a nice inside game with Everest Schmitt and Ted Detmer, forcing Holy Cross to take an early timeout. Bilal Adbullah led the way with 22 points. Lafayette, despite being down by as much as 20 points, managed to close the gap to 6 points with a minute to play. Six-for-9 three-point shooting in the second half kept Lafayette in a game where they showed no sign of packing it in early or backing down in this overly physical match-up. Ball control from Thomas and Simmons and consistent shooting from Pat Doherty helped Holy Cross lock the game up.
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| Keys to the Game |
| Key sequence |
With Lafayette leading 24-18 early on, Holy Cross let their defense help them out by two consecutive steals by Simmons, and a couple inside lay-ins, the Crusaders took the lead for the first time going up 29-28, and eventually taking a 7-point lead into the locker room, and never trailing again in the game after going ahead.
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| Key sign it was over |
This one got tighter than it should have down to the wire, as the Crusaders allowed the Leopards to slip back into contention with a couple big shots from Betley and Harley, but after a Abdullah foul, Thomas made one of two free throws to extend the lead to 8 with under a minute to all but seal the victory.
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| Key performance |
A gutsy performance from the Crusaders lead man Simmons resulted in a game high 26 points. Abdullah, who was guarding Simmons for most of the game, made him work to create his own shots and played decent defense on him. This was no problem for Simmons, who shot 9-for-12 from the field. After the game Abdullah on Simmons as a player, “Many of my teammates believe that he can be a NBA-caliber player.â€
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| Key statistic |
Holy Cross’s shooting percentage: 59.2 percent from the field and 60.0 percent from three-point. 14 offensive rebounds also helped Holy Cross convert on second chance shots.
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| Notes |
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At halftime the rebound battle was knotted up even at 9-9. In the second half the Crusaders proceeded to step up and record a hefty 30 rebounds, 14 offensive. The Leopard finished with 16 rebounds, only 4 being offensive.
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Keith Simmons coming into the week was the Patriot Player of the week, averaging 18.0 points per game and shooting 62.5 percent.
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Lafayette travels to Colgate and Navy on Jan. 10 and 13 before coming back on Jan. 17 to face Bucknell.
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Holy Cross wraps up a long road trip with today’s game, which ends a stretch of 11 games over six weeks away from the Hart Center. The Crusaders went 5-6 on the rough trip, which included games at Duke and Syracuse. Their next three games are at home against Army, Bucknell, and Navy.
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