Colgate Wins Patriot League for Fourth Straight Year
The Colgate Raiders became Patriot League Champions last night when they defeated the Lehigh Mountain Hawks 74-55 in the Patriot League Championship on Cotterell Court in Hamilton, NY. If you are a Colgate fan you have to be happy about the fact that there has quite frankly never been a better time to be a Raiders fan considering this is the fourth straight year they have won, the conference. While Colgate has lost all past three years in the first round of the NCAA tournament (against Arkansas in 2021, Wisconsin in 2022, and Texas last year) they are hopeful that this year, being their seventh NCAA tournament appearance in school history will finally be the year that they get their first NCAA tournament win in school history. Let’s take a look at how the Raiders won the Patriot League Championship!
Colgate looked to be the more prepared team from the opening tip of this one as they were up 23-11 on the Mountain Hawks after the first ten minutes of play in the first half. The Raiders would continue to outplay Lehigh for the last ten minutes of the first half as they would head into halftime with a 19-point lead, up 45-26, on the Mountain Hawks as both teams headed into the locker room. Coming out of the locker room it would be more of the same great play from the Raiders as after the first ten minutes of play in the second half they had extended their lead to 23 points as they were up 63-40 on the Mountain Hawks in a game where the last ten minutes of play were not needed at all to decide the outcome of this one. Lehigh never led at any point in the forty minutes of gameplay in this one as sophomore guards Brady Cummins and Braeden Smith led the Raiders with 19 and 15 points respectively.
Current news regarding the NCAA tournament confirms that the Raiders will most likely be a fifteen seed just like they were last year. Unfortunately for Colgate though just like last year when they lost by twenty points in the first round to the Texas Longhorns, the Raiders will probably have another very tough if not tougher opponent this year that will by no means be an easy team to defeat. While many college basketball fans will most likely not pick Colgate this year keeping in mind the fact, that they have never won a tournament game in school history, Head Coach Matt Langel and his team will hope to prove all the doubters wrong for the first time ever this March.
