Brendan Grudberg ’28
Sports Editor
Given that the Holy Cross basketball teams are wrapping up the regular season, and this is the last Spire issue until March 13, I figured I would give some insight into our Crusaders’ chances in this year’s Patriot League men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, tipping off on March 3 and 7, respectively.
The Patriot League Championship is the primary focus for our basketball teams each year. Being a smaller Division I school, winning the conference is the only viable means of making the NCAA tournament, and, barring a March Madness miracle that will have my Kalshi portfolio covering next year’s tuition, the only way our teams can win a championship. With that being said, let’s take a look at both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams’ prospects in the big upcoming dance.
Starting on the men’s side of things, they have had an up and down season in multiple ways. The team had a mediocre 5-8 non-conference showing, before a hot 3-2 start in Patriot League play, only to drop nine of the next 11 games to bring us to a 5-11 conference record as of Feb. 23.
For the men, the focus in the last two games will be to improve their seeding as much as possible. They stand in a three-way tie for last place in the conference, and two games behind 6th place Loyola, the minimum seed they’d need to avoid the preliminary “play-in round” of the conference tournament.
Being two games behind with as many games left to play makes reaching that sixth seed a tall task, leaving the next best goal of securing a home game for the play-in round. The Patriot League official website has Holy Cross in eighth place via tiebreakers, which means winning both of their final two games guarantees a home playoff game, and winning one of two should still give a decent shot.
Their final two opponents are 8-8 Boston University (away) and 7-9 Loyola-MD (home), two teams the Crusaders have played in February and suffered losses to by no greater than 10 points.
Both of these teams have a significantly better net rating than the Crusaders, and have recently shown they can take care of business against Coach Paulsen’s squad, but the recency of these results may also bode well for Holy Cross.
That first loss to BU was their first game following the heartbreaking season-ending injury of Joe Nugent, a key contributor for the team, and since then, they have seemingly adjusted to life without the sharpshooting junior. They are 2-3 since that game, having won against a respectable Lehigh squad (you can thank Bob Cousy’s presence for that one) and edged out last-place Bucknell for a key seeding advantage.
Sandwiched between those wins were three respectable losses, the most notable of which a four-point loss to 11-5 Colgate. In those five games, junior Gabe Warren and first-year Aiden Disu have broken out to fill the void left by Nugent, averaging 17.2 and 18.2 points, respectively.
The men’s team’s chances at winning the Patriot League tournament are slim, no doubt. Regardless of the team’s disappointing results, the conference has an absolute juggernaut this season, 15-1 Navy, whose net rating of +16.3 trumps the second best mark (American) by over 10 points.
But as has been said so many times before, you want to play your best basketball late in the season, and with two wins to close out the regular season, the men’s basketball team has a chance to be a great underdog story in the conference tournament.
Now for the women’s team. Their standing in the league is much better than that of the men as of right now, but they hold the same goal ahead of their final two games: maximize seeding for the conference tournament.
According to the Patriot League website, Holy Cross is in second place with two games to go, also against Loyola MD (8-8) and Boston University (5-11). While the No. 1 seed is already out of reach thanks to Navy’s sheer dominance (14-2) in both basketball competitions this year, they obviously have the ability to maintain their spot as the No. 2 seed.
This would still give them a massive advantage in the tournament, as it would guarantee home court advantage up until the championship round, something that makes me very excited as the women’s quarter- and semifinals are taking place following the spring break. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: the Crusaders will likely need to win both of their final games to clinch this opportunity.
Holy Cross has beaten both of those teams thus far, and expecting them to do the same in round number two would not be unreasonable. Holy Cross has at least an eight-point lead in net rating over both schools, meaning they can be expected to win by eight points on average in a 100-possession game.
They have ascended to the league’s top spot in defensive rating since I last spoke about them, and their main Achilles heel–three-point shooting–has improved over their now four game win streak.
Two conference teams–Army (+15.1) and Navy (+13.8)–dwarf the Crusaders (+3.8) in net rating, and will likely be their two toughest foes in the upcoming tournament. However, the only fact you need to retain your optimism is that Holy Cross has beaten both of these teams this year, by double digits at that.
Although not the favorite, the Holy Cross Women’s Basketball team is still very much a contender for the Patriot League title in the coming weeks, perhaps the only goal Head Coach Candice Green has set in order to determine this season a success.
Web edited by Emily Costello ’27
Featured image courtesy of Holy Cross Women’s Basketball Instagram
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