Sports Talk: No. 1 Means Little in Deep League

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AMERICAN UNIVERSITY'S COURT LEADER Derrick Mercer could tell that something was up because of how loud the crowd at Bender Arena had become during the final minutes of Saturday's game.

For star guard Garrison Carr, it was the smiles on the faces of his teammates on the bench — "I knew they couldn't be smiling just about our game," he said.

Then, during a break with 13 seconds left, forward Bryce Simon heard someone say that Navy had lost, meaning the Eagles were about to win their first outright Patriot League regular season title in six years.

"It's definitely special to win it outright," Carr said after American's 84-72 win over Lafayette on Saturday. "Not to sound selfish, but who wants to share a title? Winning it outright makes it that much better."

So, does American get a first-round bye or a cakewalk game as its reward for winning the league? Not exactly. On Wednesday, the Eagles play Holy Cross. The Crusaders are technically the worst team in the Patriot League with a 5-9 conference record, but they dominated the league last year with a 13-1 conference record, have been to three straight Patriot League championship games and have been to four NCAA tournaments since 2000.

Oh, they were also the preseason pick to win the conference this year.

By contrast, American went through 10 losing seasons before coach Jeff Jones arrived in 2001, the same year the team moved from the CAA to the Patriot League. Though Jones has gotten his team to three championship games in his first six seasons, the Eagles have never been to the NCAA Tournament.

"How can we look past them?" Jones said of Holy Cross. "They beat us on our home court this year already once. They kicked us and pretty much everybody else around for the last few years. I would be incredulous if we didn't have their attention. I don't think that's a possibility."

Photo by Preston Keres/The Washington Post