After a fall that almost seemed too good to be true, the wintertime, and with it the Patriot League season, have descended upon the AU Men's Basketball team with cold reality.
After a jolting home loss to Lehigh Saturday, 56-53, to start the PL season, the Eagles (8-6, 1-1) have somewhat regained their footing, picking up road wins at out-of-conference foes Yale Monday, 69-65, and league rivals Navy Wednesday, 66-60.
But any visions of dominating the league and gliding to the school's first PL tournament title, conjured by a red-hot 5-2 start in which the Eagles beat Vermont, Ohio, and St. Francis, Pa., must be replaced with images of a more arduous fight for the crown.
The Eagles, though they're not ice cold, began to lose momentum with the end of the fall semester.
AU lost to beltway bullies Maryland, 82-61, on Dec. 23. AU tested the Terps, whom both coaches and writers pegged in the top 25 at the time, leading for much of the first half, and trailing only 38-36 at halftime. And even though Maryland's depth proved too much to handle, the Eagles had a solid game.
AU's performances became spottier after that, however. On Dec. 28, the Eagles surrendered a late 48-40 lead and an unbeaten home record, losing to La Salle, 66-53. On Jan. 2, AU awoke from a sluggish start to beat hosts Delaware, 64-58. AU traveled west to Missouri, where the Eagles gave the more powerful Tigers trouble, but lost, 64-51. Then came what was, by all AU accounts, the disappointing league opener.
"For some reason, when game time comes, we haven't been ready to play for the past three games, maybe four," said AU sophomore guard Andre Ingram, the PL's leading scorer, after the Lehigh loss.
Said AU head coach Jeff Jones after that game: "Right now it's a waste of our time to think of things in terms of the league race. We need to address ourselves. ... We can't have the same kind of mental performance. We worked hard. ... We played hard, but that's not enough."
While the PL season is still very young, it's shaping up to be an interesting race.
Lehigh, by dismissing the Eagles on their home floor, has established itself as a legitimate threat to repeat its 2004 championship feat.
Bucknell, a preseason PL favorite that started slowly but gained national attention by beating then-AP No. 10 Pittsburgh, 69-66, finally look to have its guns lined up for an assault on the PL crown.
Holy Cross, which is always a PL threat on its name alone, came out of a tough out-of-conference schedule 7-5, and figures to be a fourth contender.
AU has the physical firepower to overcome those contenders. But as Jones admitted, the Eagles sometimes struggle to make good decisions on the floor.
Much of that relates to the progress of sophomore point guard Linas Lekavicius. In his first year at the position, Lekavicius looks brilliant at times, and lost at others. While junior Ryan Graham is a stable backup, AU's offense is only truly dangerous with Lekavicius at the helm, and his progress is the major key for the Eagles' season.
Another key is finding the right scoring threat on the right night to accompany Ingram. While Ingram is the go-to guy every game, the Eagles, in the absence of a second pure scorer, need to find a second contributor each night to take some pressure off the guard.
Sometimes that second threat can be Jason Thomas, who was lethal on offense early in the season, matching or breaking career highs in three straight games. But Thomas cools off as often as he heats up, leaving the three AU senior big men to fill the void. Of that trio, the athletic Patrick Okpwae is the most explosive, and the brawny Raimondas Petrauskas is the most consistent. The tallest, Matej Creznik, hovers somewhere between that polarity.
Finding the right hand on the right day is perhaps Lekavicius' hardest task, especially with everyone in the PL well aware of Ingram. It will sometimes be Lekavicius who needs to score.
The Eagles still have plenty of time and opportunities to solve their puzzle. The next comes this Saturday, when AU hosts Lafayette at Bender Arena at 2 p.m.
The Leopards defeated the Eagles at Bender in overtime last year on their way to an early position atop the PL. But the Eagles returned the favor in the rematch, a game that spelled a severe season-ending downturn for the Leopards, and a late-season hot streak leading to the PL title game for the Eagles.
While the Leopards were favored to win the PL title in 2004, Lehigh and AU both stormed from behind to finish tied atop the PL at the end of the regular season.
There's no reason this season should be any less unpredictable.
