Coming into the game on Feb. 8, the men’s basketball team was fighting for playoff standings. The Bison were on a two game losing streak which was capped off with a hard loss to rival Lafayette in overtime. However, the Bison still remained in the running for the first seed in the Patriot League. If the losing streak would have continued, there was no telling how low they would fall in the standings. Nevertheless, our squad put the tough losses behind them and stampeded over both Holy Cross and Navy.

Lead by John Azzinaro ’17 and Zach Thomas ’18, the Bison rose to the challenge and topped Holy Cross 70-57 at a packed Sojka Pavilion on Feb. 8. This win brought the Bison into a two way tie for first place in the Patriot League with Colgate. Holy Cross is always a tough opponent, and there were an eye opening 69 foul shots taken between the two teams. This is the type of game the Bison needed after allowing both Colgate and Lafayette to shoot over 53 percent from the field. They held the Crusaders to 30.6 percent shooting for the game. Along with the great defensive performance, the Bison played a sound game offensively. Four bison scored in double figures and kept the team ahead even without a huge contribution from Chris Hass ’16, who is fourth in the league in scoring.

Guard Joshea Singleton’15 noted that this game was huge for the Bison as they looked to get back on track.

“That [Holy Cross] game was a big game for us. We had lost two in a row, so that was a much needed win. Now we are just focusing on getting better every day so that we can cut down the nets in March,” Singleton said.

The next step towards cutting down the nets was to defeat a strong Navy opponent at home. Guard Ryan Frazier ’16 scored a career-high 19 points as the Bison escaped with a one point victory. The 52-51 win gave the Bison a season sweep over the Midshipmen and also gave them a one game advantage in the all time series.

Things were not good in the first half, and although the Bison played great on defense, their offense struggled. They went into the second half  down six, but they stormed back with multiple lead changes all the way down to the last seconds. With 2:53 left to play, Frazier hit a tie breaking 3 to give the Orange and Blue a 47-46 lead. Frazier continued to star as he made two huge free throws to give the Bison a three point lead with 19.2 seconds left. After a Navy score, Frazier grabbed a huge rebound and followed with one free throw to put the game away.

The Bison look continue their hot streak as they take on Army on Feb. 15 at West Point.