Patriot League
The league has been dominated by Colgate, which has finished either first or second in the conference standings each of the past seven seasons and made five straight NCAA Tournaments. Colgate’s 72-6 straight-up record against Patriot League teams is the best record against conference foes in the country in that span, but the program does need to replace each of last season’s top three scorers to stay on top.
The Patriot League is a make-it-and-take-it conference with Loyola MD losing 25 games last season, the second-most in program history, despite allowing opponents to rebound just 17.1% of their missed shots as an offensive rebound in home games. That was good for the nation’s best home defensive rebound percentage.
The conference was also by far the slowest as a collective in the country with nine of the 10 teams in the conference ranking 302nd or lower in total possessions per game. Lehigh bucked that trend, ranking 75th in possessions per game. The Mountain Hawks bring back their top two leaders in points per game from last season.
Navy returns eight of last season’s top nine scorers and each of the top four, including Austin Benigni, who averaged 17.0 points and 3.8 assists per game last season.
Before Colgate’s dominance in the conference, Bucknell had a stretch of six NCAA Tournament appearances in 14 seasons (2005-2018) and second-year coach John Griffin, a player from the team that defeated Kansas in the 2005 tournament, returns four of his top five scorers from a season ago.
After missing the whole 2023-24 season, Jalen Rucker returns for Army to aid an offense that was 347th in points scored on a per possession basis last season and posted a 10-22 record after going 17-16 the previous season.
American lives and dies by the 3-point shot, ranking 27th in percentage of shots from 3-point range on offense and 29th in highest percentage of opponents points coming from made 3-pointers.
