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Colgate on a roll as Lafayette heads to Hamilton

01/28/2015, 1:45am EST

By Aron Minkoff

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)
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The saying goes that it is not about how you start, it’s about how you finish.

If that holds true, then the Colgate Raiders–despite a terrible opening to the season–may be able to call the 2014-15 season a success after all.

The Raiders began the season going 1-7, including tough, heartbreaking losses to Sacred Heart, Albany and La Salle. Their losing stretch included a streak of five losses in a row, capped off by a 20-point beating from Ohio State.

Since that loss at the hands of the Buckeyes, though, the Raiders are 8-5, with a 6-2 record in the Patriot League. This is good enough to tie them with Bucknell atop the conference standings heading into Wednesday night’s matchup against Lafayette.

Perhaps the biggest reason for Colgate’s sudden stretch of success is its high shooting percentage. The Raiders sit second in the conference and 49th overall in Division I basketball with a 46.6 field goal percentage. The only team in the Patriot League with a higher percentage, however, is Lafayette who boasts a 47.6 field goal percentage.

Think this matchup will be a shootout? Not so fast. That is not the type of game senior guard Damon Sherman-Newsome and the Raiders say they want.

“We know they are a really good offensive team ‘1’ to ‘5,’ but we play a little slower than they do,” Sherman-Newsome said. “We do not want it to be a shootout necessarily, but we can play that game. We need to focus on our defense and not let them down what they want to do and slow tempo.”

Colgate’s defense has stepped up thus far in conference play, as it has held its opponents to just a 42.8 field goal percentage while limiting them to just 63 ppg. Lafayette comes in averaging 75.5 ppg, so something has to give when the two teams meet.

“They have great 3-point shooting, and they share the ball very well,” Colgate coach Matt Langelsaid. “There is not one thing that they can do, they take what defense gives them. We have sort-of tried to model our program off of their offense.”

The Colgate program is one that has not appeared in a NCAA tournament since the 1995-96 season and has experienced quite limited success. Langel and the Raiders seem to be on track to secure the program’s first winning season since the 2007-08 season, when they lost to American in the Patriot League championship game.

However, after that 1-7 start it did not appear that this season would end successfully for the Raiders. But Langel and his veteran lineup have seemingly turned the season around.

“We have been close for a while, just needed to get over the hump,” Langel said. “There is no exact answer. I credit our experience and veterans, the fact that we have seven seniors on the team, five of whom who play and play together to work it out. As cliche it sounds we just wanted to figure it out.”

Perhaps the best player of the crop of seniors that Langel has at his disposal is the aforementioned 6-foot-5 guard Sherman-Newsome. The Anchorage, Alaska native leads the team with 15.8 ppg, which is also good enough for third in the Patriot League.

Sherman-Newsome is undoubtedly one of the team-leaders, averaging nearly 30 mpg and was a key cog in the Raiders’ weathering of their horrid start.

“I think the biggest key was just me and my other seniors, just sticking with it,” Sherman-Newsome added. “Showing up for practice every day, not throwing in the towel, we kept fighting. Just believing our team was good enough…as far as scoring, I did not feel too much pressure, just wanted to show my team that I wasn’t giving up.”

You cannot put a price on experience, and the Raiders are full of it. The veteran lineup Langel uses really helped the Raiders weather the storm at the beginning of the season.

In addition to Sherman-Newsome, senior centerEthan Jacobs, an Ohio transfer, contributes 12.1 ppg and 4.9 rpg, while junior Austin Tillotson, a Monmonth transfer, chimes in 10.6 ppg with 4.5 apg.

As much of the recent success is attributed to Sherman-Newsome and his fellow seniors, Langel deserves equal if not more credit. He took over the program in 2011 after a 7-23 season, and they have improved in the win column each year. With 10 games remaining, the Raiders are only four wins away from matching last year’s win total. And with a win against Lafayette, they’ll have secured their most conference wins under Langel.

Langel is a Penn graduate who was an assistant coach to Fran Dunphy at Penn and eventually followed Dunphy to Temple in 2006. The Raiders coaching staff consists of two other Penn graduates (Mike Jordan and Dave Klatsky) and one Ursinus grad (Mike McGarvey).

“When people say Philadelphia, for me, people in Philadelphia care about basketball,” Langel added. “People love the game. I think that wears off our team, we have a coaching staff that could be doing a lot of different things with their lives but they are choosing to coach basketball and I hope that is the attitude that wears off on our players.”