Holy Cross Crusaders vs. Colgate Raiders
Site: Cotterell Court
Location: Hamilton, NY
Date: February 18
Hammin' it Up: It's hard to find a genuine college "town" these days. It feels like many of them have become cities or centers of industry. Even Burlington, VT, where I went to school and which is ranked towards the top of best college towns, feels like a city. Any "town" with its own public transportation system or commercial airport isn't a "town" anymore.
Hamilton, NY has done everything in its power to maintain that "college-town" status. The village comprises a scant 2.9 square miles, with storefronts and architecture straight out of It's a Wonderful Life. Instead of your typical antique stores and diners (although, you can find them here), however, Hamilton enjoys a cosmopolitan business district with Indian restaurants, bookstores, art galleries, and even a movie theater. Hamilton truly unites the quaintness of a small town with the worldly vigor of a college town.
Hamilton and the surrounding communities in Madison County have been a part of my life since I was born. Both my parents grew up there, and we would visit at least five or six times a year to meet up with their old friends and extended family.
I remember my grandpa's house on Crow Hill in Madison, located where Crow Hill Road bends and heads back down the hill in the heart of miles of farmland. You could see all the way to Morrisville from his back deck, and enjoy the view with the calm swishing sounds of the windmills that dotted the hill in the background. For dinner, we would chow down at the Pizza Pub in the outskirts of Hamilton, which I maintain to this day makes the greatest pizza on the planet (and I've been to both Brooklyn and Italy, mind you).
After my grandpa passed, the land would become ours, and we built a cabin in the woods behind his home. In the summer I would bike up and down the road, and explore the rolling hills of farmland. In the winter, the region's legendarily heavy snowfall and cold would coat the trees in sugary snow, and cover roots and shoots in membranes of ice.
In many ways, Hamilton and the surrounding towns are like a second home to me. You might understand, then, why Colgate is my favorite Division I basketball team.
The Power of a Smile: During this year's NCAA preseason, I tuned in to Colgate's game against the Auburn Tigers. As you would expect any guarantee game to go (a game where big conference team plays a team from smaller conference to give them exposure, in exchange for an almost guaranteed win), the Tigers dominated the Raiders from the opening buzzer. I ended up paying more attention to the crowd, and what the announcers were saying. One of the posters being held up said "who names a team after a toothpaste?"
I don't expect a random fan of an SEC team to know anything about a team's history from the Patriot League, where every school is above the Mason-Dixon line and is ranked near the bottom in Division I in conference strength. Incidentally, they happen to be right.
Initially known as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, the university now known as Colgate went through a few iterations before adopting the name from William Colgate, who in addition to being a trustee at the school founded the Colgate-Palmolive Company. Which makes Colgate toothpaste.
Fans who attend Colgate basketball games have many reasons to show their smiles. The Raiders have had the Patriot League on lockdown, winning every single regular season title since 2018. Regular season titles are a nice little asterisk for teams in power conferences, but in smaller conferences, they carry a lot of weight. Especially in the Patriot League, which is one of the few conferences where every tournament game is hosted by the higher seed, including the championship game. It's a lot easier to contend for a conference title in front of your own fans than on the road.
Not to mention the Patriot League is a one-bid league, meaning only one team will go on to postseason play. You could go undefeated in the regular season, beat some power teams in the preseason, and dominate everyone leading up to the conference championship game...but if you lose that game, your season is over. No NCAA tournament appearance. No NIT, or CIT, or SHIT.
Cotterell Court is one of the most intimidating gyms in the northeast to play in. It's small, cramped, and hot on the night of a big game, but that doesn't stop the student section from creating havoc beneath the hoop. And with a team that shoots as many threes as Colgate (as of this writing, they lead the entire NCAA), it's hard not to get hyped with them. The players are well-coached, selfless, and have unique personalities. It's a great place to catch a basketball game, and typically pretty cheap too.
You Speak My Langel-uage: Colgate coach Matt Langel has transformed the Raiders from a B+ program in the Patriot League to one of the most feared teams in the northeast since arriving in Hamilton in 2011. In the 2021-2022 season, he became the winningest head coach in school history. Since 2018, the Raiders have been 86-34 overall and an astounding 54-12 in league play. Typically, in a smaller conference, a team will get hot for a couple years at a time as good players come through, then regress a bit. Colgate has been dominant for five seasons now, and they don't show any signs of slowing down.
The 2022-2023 iteration of the Raiders are veteran-heavy, with fifth-year senior Tucker Richardson leading a starting five of four seniors and true-freshman Braeden Smith. I mentioned already that the Raiders are the best three-point shooting team in the country, but they can be just as dangerous in the paint. They pass quickly and seamlessly, and sometimes, in the case of the monstrous Jeff Woodward, they just force their way to the hoop.
February 18 happened to be senior night for this veteran squad, and the senior ceremony seemed to take longer than the warmup. For the visiting Crusaders of Holy Cross, the toughest challenge of the regular season loomed large. Despite having a storied history in college basketball, dating back to the 1940's when they made two Final Fours and won the national championship in 1947, the Crusaders have slumped in recent years. Their last Patriot League crown was in 2016, and since then, they haven't finished above fifth in league standings.
The last time the Crusaders and the Raiders tangled in January, however, the Raiders only escaped with a six-point win.
It looked like Colgate had brushed the cobwebs off after that narrow win early, soaring to a 25-9 lead by the time the clock read 11:32. Holy Cross just couldn't contain the shooting of seniors Tucker Richardson and Oliver Lynch-Daniels, who each recorded a pair of three's.
Freshman guard Will Batchelder was up and down the court on offense and defense, sinking a pair of three's and a calm two-pointer to help the Crusaders close the gap a bit, but the Raiders would still cling to a 46-40 advantage at the half.
The second half was all Colgate. Though the Crusaders forced the Raiders to play tough, putting a few in foul trouble in the process, Colgate just kept finding the hoop. So much so, in fact, that by the final accounting, the Raiders had flattened the Crusaders 96-73.
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