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Men’s basketball team to be featured twice on Broadcast
The Holy Cross men’s basketball team will be featured
twice on the 2003 Patriot League TV package, which will
now be broadcast nationally on DIRECTV. The Crusaders will
appear on Feb. 21 when they host American at 9 p.m., and
then again on Feb. 28 when they head to Bucknell.
This will be the Patriot League’s sixth year of producing
men’s and women’s basketball games and with DIRECTV.
The package can be seen by more than 10.7 million households.
The 11-game schedule will feature six consecutive Friday
night telecasts, all four Patriot League Tournament semifinal
games (two men and two women) and the women’s championship
game. All regular season Friday night games are scheduled
for 9 p.m.
Returning for his sixth season as the play-by-play commentator
for the games will be Jack Corrigan. John Feinstein, renowned
author of The Last Amateurs and numerous other best sellers,
will handle color commentary duties for the men’s
games for the second straight year, while Jody Patrick
Lavin will handle the duties for the women’s games.
The package will hit the airwaves on Friday, Jan. 24, with
Lafayette heading to Bethlehem to battle Lehigh.
On the following Friday, Navy will travel to West Point,
N.Y., to battle heated rival, Army, before Colgate will
battle Lafayette in Easton, Pa., on Feb. 7. The February
games will continue as Navy heads to the new Recreation
and Athletics Center at Bucknell University on the 14th
to battle the Bison.
Last year’s championship game rematch will take place
on the fifth DIRECTV broadcast, when American visits Holy
Cross. The Crusaders swept the regular season series against
the Eagles and became only the second team in league history
to win the tournament title on the road. Holy Cross has
yet to lose to American and leads the all-time series,
4-0.
The final regular season broadcast will feature Holy Cross
and Bucknell. In 30 meetings between the two schools, the
Bison hold a 17-13 advantage, but Holy Cross has won three
of the last four meetings, including last year’s meeting
in Lewisburg.
All four Patriot League Tournament semifinal games will
be broadcast from the 13th annual tournament held at the
Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, Md. The day will open
with back-to-back women’s semifinal contests starting
at noon. The men’s semifinals will tip-off at 5 and
7:30 p.m.
The Patriot League women’s championship contest will
be played on the campus of the highest remaining seed.
The broadcast is slated to begin at 7 p.m. on Wednesday,
March 12. ESPN will broadcast the men’s championship
game on Friday, March 14 at 4:30 p.m.
The Patriot League, an NCAA Division I athletics conference
founded on the principle of admitting athletes who are
academically representative of their class, is in its second
decade of academic and athletic excellence. Participation
in intercollegiate athletics at Patriot League institutions
is viewed as an important component of the undergraduate
experience. A successful Division I-AA football conference
since 1986 and an all-sport conference since 1990, membership
includes American, Army, Bucknell Colgate, Holy Cross,
Lafayette, Lehigh and Navy, while six additional institutions
hold associate membership. Patriot League member institutions
are among the oldest and most prestigious in the nation,
graduating alumni who are well prepared for life with the
ability to make meaningful contributions to their community
and society in general. In the most recent NCAA Graduation
Rate Report of student athletes, the Patriot League ranked
first among NCAA Division I conferences.
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