By PAUL GOTHAM
BROOKLYN, NY — There’s no escaping the numbers. Like Hampton (17-18) last year and Cal Poly (14-20) the year before that, the Holy Cross Crusaders (14-19) find themselves among the some 25 schools which have, over the years, earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament despite having a losing record.
Just don’t expect the Crusaders to be content with a one-game appearance.
“I think that there’s some type of chip on our shoulder, kind of show we proved that we should be here,” said junior guard Robert Champion during Tuesday’s press conference. “We definitely think we should be here. I don’t think our record is very reflective of how our season went.”
After losing all nine road contests during the conference regular season and dropping seven of their last eight overall in the regular season, Holy Cross won four Patriot League tournament games at their opponents’ gymnasiums.
“We lost a lot of close games especially towards the end of the year,” Champion continued. “We could kind of see, if we changed a few things here, a few things there, we could turn some of those losses into wins, and that’s what we’re able to do. So I think there is some type of chip on our shoulder, and obviously we just want to keep playing. We’re going to do whatever it takes to keep that going.”
The Crusaders dropped three straight in middle February by a combined 10 points. They led Lehigh with eight minutes to go before falling by five. Against Army West Point, they missed a three to tie the game with 10 seconds remaining. They followed that with a one-point setback to American.
In a strange way it makes sense. Under first-year coach Bill Carmody, Holy Cross had to change their ways. Carmody brought with him his Princeton offense which requires patience to learn and execute. The former Northwestern coach also brought a different defensive scheme.
“Changing our defense was key for us,” Champion explained. “Going to the 1-3-1 helped us out a lot. We tried to do some things with it earlier in the year and weren’t very successful with it. I think it just goes to just playing harder and then trusting it a little bit more I think during the regular season when it wasn’t really working for us.”
With the odd-front half-court zone clicking, Holy Cross knocked off Loyola (MD), 72-67 before taking down No. 1-seed Bucknell, 77-72 in double overtime. In the PL semi-finals the Crusaders held Army West Point to 22.6 percent shooting in a 60-38 victory. Holy Cross claimed the automatic berth with a 59-56 win at Lehigh’s Stabler Arena.
“We just had to trust our teammates that our slides would work and that the defense would take care of itself,” Champion stated. “I think the other thing that was key for it was finishing everything with a rebound. I think during the regular season we struggled to rebound out of the 1-3-1, and I think over this past run we’ve done a lot better job of limiting teams to one possession.”
Scoring 11.5 points a game, Champion is one of three Crusaders in double figures. Malachi Alexander leads the way with a dozen points, and freshman Karl Charles scores 10.8.
“We can’t get away from what got us to this point,” Alexander said. “I think we were always playing with a chip on our shoulder, because teams would look down on us as like we didn’t deserve to be playing in the game. And even our play-in game in our own league tournament, you know, we were the underdogs going into that. So I think we’ve stuck with that, and it adds a sort of toughness to our team that I think will easily translate over.”
This will be the 13th trip to the NCAA Tournament for Holy Cross – the sixth as a Patriot League member. The Crusaders last punched a ticket in 2007.
Carmody guided Princeton back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances in 1997 and ’98. His team will take on Southern University (22-12) of the SWAC Wednesday night in the First Four at University of Dayton Arena.
Adrian Rodgers scores 16.6 a game for Southern. Trelun Banks adds 12.6. The Jaguars have five guys scoring 9.6 or more per contests.
“They like to get up and down, well-coached, balanced scoring with inside/outside kind of game,” Carmody said of the Jaguars. “They play multiple defenses, man-to-man, 2-3 zone. They’ll pick up full court, three-quarter court, things we’ve seen before. But different teams do them better than other teams, and they seem to be pretty effective in certain areas, forcing turnovers. It’s just that style, so we’re going to have to take care of the basketball.”
A 6:40 tip-ff is scheduled.
Holy Cross won the 1947 NCAA National Championship.
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