The Lafayette College men’s basketball team lost again at home, this time to Bucknell University. The final score of 94-66 reflects yet again the team’s inability to compete in… The Patriot League. Yes, the Patriot League, not the Big 10.
Lafayette is now 5-16, 2-8 in the league, and bumbling toward another single-digit-win season. With eight regular-season games left, Lafayette would need to go 6-2 to get to 10 Division 1 wins (one of the five victories was against Rosemont, a small Division 3 school near Philadelphia).
Statistics mean little in a blowout. The lack of an inside game, or defense, or much else, doomed Head Coach Fran O’Hanlon’s Leopards to another defeat, this one another wipeout on home court. Bucknell’s rebounding edge — 48 to 38 — is only part of the story, and an expected part.
Lafayette sophomores Alex Petrie (16 points) and Justin Jaworski (12) led Lafayette, which was not in the game during the second half. Home court means nothing in Easton, Pennsylvania, as Lafayette loses game after game at Kirby Fieldhouse.
The challenge is for Athletic Director Sherryta Freeman to hire a new coach. Lafayette is headed to its fourth-straight single-digit D1 win season. If she can’t make a change at head coach of men’s basketball, there will be no “Climbing the Hill” and there will be few fans who care.
Lafayette is now alone in the basement of the league and probably going to stay there.
Another year wasted, and no promise ahead.