Mon. 01/29 and Wed. 01/31, PL Basketball, You Pick...

Holy Cross
Bucknell
Colgate
Navy
BU

Holy Cross
Bucknell
Colgate
Navy
BU

Holy Cross
Bucknell
Colgate
American
BU

Holy Cross
Bucknell
Colgate
Navy
BU

HC
Bucknell
Colgate
Navy
Loyola

Holy Cross
Bucknell
Lafayette
American
BU

Holy Cross
Bucknell
Colgate
Navy
BU

OK. OK.  I know I'm stinking up the board with my picks this year, but a minor nit on the standings ...

...  how am I behind thecrossisback?  I have more correct picks and a better winning percentage.  How does the scoring system work??     

Time to go on a run.  Here's my picks for this week.


Holy Cross
Bucknell
Colgate
Navy
Boston Univ.

Holy Cross- HC lost by 6 in the first game as Lehigh had its best 3 point night both in terms of number--15--and percentage--58%. Tejada went 6/8 and Andree 5/9. HC has won 3 of its last 4 games, beating Army & Lafayette with offense and American with defense. HC's other 4 wins, by my analysis, were due to defense. These last 3 wins also came in HC's 3 best shooting (eff fg pctg) games of the season to date. Lehigh does not draw a lot of fouls, so we can hope HC will have that rare game without a FT deficit. Crusaders should have a higher confidence level today and that will help and maybe we'll also see 3,000+ fans at the game. Freshman Marques Wilson has been playing well for Lehigh--let's be mindful of him.

Bucknell-- Army depends on the three but Bucknell defends it well both in terms of denying opponents attempts and in holding opponents to a low fg pctg. In fact, Bucknell's overall defense is outstanding, by far the best in the PL. Bucknell won the first game at Army by 17 points and should win handily today.

Colgate-- Colgate has won 4 games in a row and has won 4 PL road games so far. Colgate is 9-0 when shooting 56%+ and 3-9 when 55% or lower. Lafayette is 1-13 when opponents shoot 49% or better and Colgate has done that in 16 of 21 games. Colgate lost to Laf at home in the first game as Jordan Burns had his worst game and Colgate's shooting was way off. Colgate has been doing a much better job with 2's of late: 74/131 in the last 4 games versus 50/127 in the four prior games. Will Rayman of Colgate continues to struggle with his threes---28/53 in OOC games then 12/41 in PL play.

Navy-- Navy beat AU by 6 at Annapolis. AU is 1-13 when opponents shoot 46% or better, a pretty low hurdle to clear and Navy is at 50% in PL games. AU is doing very little substituting, e.g. in latest game Iorio and Motuzis played 40 minutes and Nelson 39. 40%+ of AU's minutes in PL play have come from players below 90 in O-Rating---that's knid of an arcane stat, but meant to show that AU may have a real talent problem.

Boston U-- Loyola won the first game by 3. Loyola has won two upsets in a row beating Lehigh on the road and Army at home. The Loyola win over Lehigh came when Loy took 16 more field goal attempts and, get this, 21 more free throws. Lehigh had 23 TO's to 14 for Loy and Loy won the rebound battle 50-37. So Loyola managed to win that game even though it had a 41% eff fg pctg versus 57% for Lehigh. Bizarre. The win over Army came when the Cadets/Black Knights had their worst 3 point game of the year. I think Loyola's good fortune will run out against a pretty good Boston University team. BU is 11-3 when it shoots @52% or better and 0-7 otherwise. BU is at 55%, #1 in PL play and the Loyola defense is #9 in fg defense at 56%. As icing on the cake Loyola commits a great number of fouls and BU commits the fewest in the conference, so look for BU to have a 6+ point advantage on the line .

Holy Cross
Bucknell
Lafayette
American
Loyola

We see very few 5 for 5 pickers over the long season, so the pressure is on for you to join that august group. Good luck.

OK! OK!

The rankings are done the same as last year! Those who make all the picks for all the games are ranked ahead of those who have missed - not made picks. thecrossisback is ranked ahead of you because he has picked in all 50 games as opposed to your 45. hc6774 (ranked behind you) has the highest percentage 80% and has 1 more correct pick than you but has only made 35 picks!  Hope you had a good RUN!  !