What's in a name?
Not much, if you're the AU Eagles.
And a whole lot if you're the Holy Cross Crusaders.
Holy Cross has beaten its fair share of Patriot League men's basketball teams over the last five seasons. Luckily - or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it - I haven't had the luxury of seeing most of these games.
But I don't need a lot of background to figure out that for Holy Cross, Sunday's 76-67 overtime win over the Eagles meant much more than just another league victory.
It was a game where leading scorer Kevin Hamilton scored just 14 points while shooting five of 19 from the floor. It was a game where forward Nate Lufkin sat hampered on the bench, due to an ankle sprain he suffered Friday night at Navy.
And it was a game where, spurred on by nearly 2,000 raucous fans, Eagle leading scorer Andre Ingram pulled shots out of his back, side and front pockets down the stretch every time the Eagles needed him.
The sophomore guard carried the team on its back, scoring eight of AU's final 10 points in regulation. It didn't seem like the kid could miss.
But then he did, strong-arming the second shot of a 1-and-1 with less than five seconds to play.
If it goes in, AU wins and is tied with Holy Cross for the PL lead.
Instead, regulation ends in a 57-57 tie. In overtime, two unknown Crusaders, reserve forward Tim Clifford and reserve guard Torey Thomas, combine for 17 of Holy Cross' 19 overtime points, and Holy Cross escapes D.C. with a two-game lead over the rest of the PL field.
It wasn't just a win. It was a win dignifying the Crusaders as one of "those teams." It was a Crusader win where players like Clifford, Thomas or forward John Hurley score in double figures because they have the confidence of people playing for one of "those teams." Thomas and Hurley each had 15 points, while Clifford added 13.
Hurley averages 7.6, Thomas 7.3, and Clifford a mere 2.3 per game. But for role-players on "those teams," jersey colors are more important than season averages, even if they're purple and white.
While Holy Cross had three role-players become stars, if just one Eagle did same, AU would have won comfortably. The closest anyone came to filling that role was senior forward Patrick Okpwae, whose eight overtime points gave the Eagles one last sense of false hope.
Aside from Okpwae and senior swingman Jason Thomas, who had a solid 13-point, six-rebound day while hounding Hamilton defensively, the AU supporting cast didn't show up.
Ingram missed a foul shot to win, leading directly to a loss.
But all the Eagles shot terribly up to that point, especially in the second half, during a time when they could've slit the throats of the Crusaders, who trailed 40-31 just after halftime. AU shot 38 percent from the floor, and if you take out Ingram, the Eagles were a dreadful 28 percent.
Interestingly, both camps talked about having confidence in themselves after the game. No matter who's hot and who's not, they know any player can come through for the team in clutch time, each side said.
When you're one of "those teams," like Holy Cross, you're right to say that, and you finish the game with 32 bench points.
When you're just another team, like AU, you end up with Matej Cresnik shooting two hurried overtime 3-pointers after a regulation outing where the senior forward went 1 of 8 from the floor and 0 of 3 from beyond the arc.
Cresnik isn't the reason AU lost Sunday, and neither is Ingram. The Eagles lost because in the end, everybody on Holy Cross knew they were playing for Holy Cross, and everybody on AU knew they weren't. Somehow, after just one mediocre year, pundits picked Holy Cross to finish behind Bucknell, Lehigh and AU this season.
I hope that everyone now knows that, until something drastic happens, Holy Cross will be one of "those teams" almost every season, and that the road to the Big Dance - the Mass Pike - runs through Worcester, Mass.
I hear it's wonderful there in early March.
