Updates: Patriot and Northeast Leagues

Patriot League

Summary: I think that it would be unfair to write off sucks to BU after just beating Lehigh, but I do not think they are going to finish in the same class as the Hawks or Bison.  Both Lehigh and Bucknell own Top 100 wins and played fair schedules.  I would say Lehigh has been a little less consistent, but they can shoot the lights out when they need to.  Tim Kempton is the best player in the conference.  It should be enough to ride to a 14/15 seed.  Bucknell has gotten much improved performance across the board and don’t have too many weaknesses.

What I got wrong: Bucknell, obviously. Colgate and American have been really bad.  There are no injury excuses here either, just teams that lack fundamentals. This does not bode well for Mike Brennan as his programs nosedives from the Jeff Jones days.  Lafayette wasn’t expected to be good, but also not this bad either.  Army, on the other hand, has been sneaky decent so far.  Sure, they just dropped games to the conference heavyweights, but held their own against 5 Top100 teams (winning zero).  If not for that brutal loss to Central Arkansas, this would be a great start.

Prognosis: Lehigh and Bucknell all the way.  Holy Cross joins BU and Army as the other .500+ clubs that could wreak havoc come tourney time.  I don’t see much else from the bottom half.

PAT Preseason Realtime 1 Lehigh Lehigh 2 Boston University Bucknell 3 Colgate Boston University 4 American Army 5 Bucknell Holy Cross 6 Holy Cross Navy 7 Lafayette Colgate 8 Navy Loyola 9 Loyola American 10 Army Lafayette

Northeast

Summary: Not a lot of signature performances this non-conference slate.  Wagner upset UConn then took the rest of the semester off.  Bob Morris has avoided getting blown out, but can put teams away either. Some people are high on Fairleigh Dickinson, but they cannot stop anyone and are a fluky NCAA run last year away from having been a perennial dumpster fire.  Bryant did this.  Mount Saint Mary’s stole an early one from a sleepy George Mason team, but hasn’t done anything.

What I got wrong: Bryant is a very talented freshmen-based team.  They have the most talented player in the conference.  They are not Kentucky though, so the early going was rough.  Other than that, this was pretty close, with the bottom four playing to form.

Prognosis: I still like Bryant, but there is no way they are winning this league.  The Seahawks are the only team capable of pulling a real upset, but these are 17 seed caliber teams.  I expect Robert Morris to win the regular season title, but Bryant and Wagner are playing for the bid. 

NE Preseason Realtime 1 Bryant Robert Morris 2 Wagner Wagner 3 Fairleigh Dickinson Long Island 4 Robert Morris Bryant 5 Long Island Mount Saint Mary's 6 Sacred Heart Fairleigh Dickinson 7 Mount Saint Mary's Sacred Heart 8 Saint Francis, NY Saint Francis, NY 9 Saint Francis, PA Saint Francis, PA 10 Central Connecticut State Central Connecticut State