Mid-Major Madness Patriot League Twitter Space Preview: Tavaras Hardy, Joe Jones

We continue our conference previews with the Patriot League. Every week on Twitter, we preview two conferences streaming live from the Mid-Major Madness account (@mid_madness), speaking with media members and coaches throughout the selected league.

For the full Twitter Space, hit the link below:

To open the conversation, Mid-Major Madness writer Nick Lorensen and Ethan Hennessy (aka Happening Hoops on Twitter) recapped what happened in the Patriot League last season and so far this offseason. Colgate dominated the league finishing 16-2 in conference play, running through the conference tournament. Colgate kept a first-round matchup against Wisconsin within a couple of possessions throughout before falling. The Raiders do lose their leader Nelly Cummings to the transfer portal but return three starters and should be the favorite in the Patriot League once again.

Down I-81, the other major news in the league was that “The Dean,” Fran O’Hanlon, would retire after 27 years as the head coach at Lafayette. The Leopards made the NCAA Tournament three times in his tenure. Mike Jordan will take over for him after nine seasons as an assistant coach at Colgate.

To open the conversation with coaches, Loyola (MD) head coach Tavaras Hardy (4:40) hopped on to talk about the program he’s built in Baltimore. The Evergreen campus has been home to many successful international players over the last couple of seasons including current Memphis Grizzlies forward, Santi Aldama.

“Draft night over there in Spain, Ivo (Simovic) and I went over there for Santi’s draft night. One of the most rewarding things that night were just how grateful his parents and family were,” Hardy said. “From that standpoint, our name is pretty good over there, still. People respect Loyola. Coach Ivo helped us lay a foundation that we feel we can continue with.”

The Greyhounds will look to build off that foundation with the Ilic twins from Serbia and make the program's first NCAA Tournament since 2012.

Ethan and Nick then continued the conversation by previewing every team in the league. To hear about your team, advance the recording to each time stamp.

22:00 American

25:45 Army

28:45 Boston University

31:20 Bucknell

35:20 Colgate

39:15 Holy Cross

42:40 Lafayette

49:15 Lehigh

50:50 Navy

52:35 POTY & Title Predictions

Along with the Twitter Space, Nick also talked to Boston University head coach Joe Jones about his program. The Terriers won the conference tournament in 2020, but there was no NCAA Tournament that season because of reasons. Last season, they played one of the best semifinal games in Patriot League history but Navy came out on top at the end.

“We’ve been fortunate, I have a great staff,” Jones said. “This is the best group of guys, I’ve had. Just the run that we’ve had here. Just with the character and talent that we’ve been able to mesh together.”

To listen to our whole interview with Jones, click the link: Joe Jones Interview

Along with the Patriot League, a preview article on the MEAC and Southland will also come out this week. Stay tuned next week for the Twitter Space previews on the MAAC and Mountain West.