Patriot League releases schedule, changes to the conference

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The Council of Presidents for the Patriot League revealed its plan for 2020-21 conference play, beginning January 2. The format includes alignment changes to the league and a 16-game regular-season schedule.

“We have accomplished the first step in the planning process for the 2021 Patriot League men’s and women’s basketball season,” said Lafayette College President Alison Byerly, Chair of the Council of Presidents in a press release. “The Council of Presidents places the highest value and priority on League competition and we believe this model offers the best opportunities for us to conduct a safe and successful League season.”

To limit travel and overnight visits, the Council has divided the league into three regional parts with teams playing four games against each opponent in its division. Instead of the traditional home and away match-ups versus each league program, teams will play more games against league squads that are closer geographically for health and safety reasons.

The divisional breakdown:

NORTH: Army, Boston University, Colgate, Holy Cross

CENTRAL: Bucknell, Lafayette, Lehigh

SOUTH: American, Loyola (MD), Navy

Schools will compete against a single opponent each weekend, playing back-to-back on Saturday and Sundays. The full season schedule can be found here.

Each divisional school will have its schedule supplemented with match-ups against league teams outside their division to achieve a 16-game conference season. To balance the schedule, divisional teams playing each other head-to-head more than four times will have those additional games designated as non-divisional games.

In the 10-team league, some schools will face just four teams and others as many as six in the regular season. There will be no non-conference play for any member institution except for Army and Navy. The league release explains: “Because Army and Navy are unique in their environments and their missions within higher education, their pursuit of non-League competition, as considered appropriate by their respective Superintendents, is permitted.”

The Patriot League also announced its dates for an eight-team championship tournament but did not detail the format for how teams will qualify for the playoffs. The championship game is set for March 14th.