April 8, 2003
Holy Cross senior center Patrick Whearty and Bucknell senior guard Molly Creamer were named basketball honorable mention All-Americans by the Associated Press. Whearty is the second Crusaders to earn Associated Press Honorable Mention All-American honors in the last three years (Tim Szatko, 2000-01). Creamer is the first women's basketball in BU history to earn AP All-America recognition.
Whearty was named the Patriot League's Player of the Year after averaging 12.4 points and 6.6 rebounds per game this season, including averaging 13.5 points and 8.4 rebounds in conference action. In addition to leading the team in scoring and rebounding, Whearty also led the team in blocks (42) and field goal percentage (56.5).
Whearty's 42 blocks gave him 131 for his career which ranks second all-time at Holy Cross. He also became just the 10th player in HC history to score over 1,000 points (1,068) and pull down over 675 rebounds (688) in their careers.
Whearty also was named the Patriot League Tournament Most Valuable Player, becoming just the fourth player in Conference history to win both Player of the Year and Tournament Most Valuable Player honors. He averaged 15.0 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in the conference tournament.
Holy Cross captured its second Patriot League Regular Season Championship in the last three years this season and its third straight Tournament title, marking the first time in conference history that a school has won three straight Tournament Championships. The Crusaders also tied the league record for conference wins in the regular season with a 13-1 mark.
HC finished the year with a record of 26-5, matching the second highest single-season wins total in school history. The 26 victories was HC's highest win total since 1953-54 and marked only the fifth time in school history that a men's basketball team has won 26 or more games in a single-season.
Creamer, the all-time leading scorer in Bucknell and Patriot League history, last month was named a finalist for the 2003 NCAA Division I Kodak/Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) All-America Women's Basketball Team.
With her third-straight Patriot League Player of the Year selection this season, Creamer gives Bucknell only its third player of the year honor in the 13-year history of the league, all belonging to her.
The 5-10 guard continued her assault on the Bucknell and Patriot League record books in her senior season, becoming both the conference and school's all-time leading scorer (men or women) throughout the course of the year.
Creamer, who spent a large part of the regular-season as the nation's leading scorer, finished her final season ranked second in the country at 27.1 points per game, a new PL single-season record (former record: 26.1 - Amy O'Brien, Holy Cross, 1998). Ending the year with 759 points, she became just the second player in league history, and the first Bison, to score over 700 points in a single-season, and just missed O'Brien's single-season record of 782.
Her playmaking abilities often overlooked because she is such a scoring threat, Creamer also led the Patriot League in assists (6.0) for the third-straight year. Only one other player in NCAA history, Anja Bordt (St. Mary's, 1989-91, West Coast Conference), has led her conference in both scoring and assists three-straight years.
On February 21, 2003, the co-captain broke her own school and conference single-game scoring record with 44 points on 16-of-21 shooting at Lafayette. In that contest, Creamer scored 31 of Bucknell's 36 second-half points, including the final 29 for the team, on her way to setting an Allan P. Kirby Sports Center scoring record. In January, she also set a new women's single-game scoring record in Colgate's Cotterell Court with 37 against the Raiders.
This season, Creamer scored at least 20 points in 23 of 28 games, breaking her own record for 20-point games in a single-season, set last year (18). She tallied over 30 in 11 games, also a school record, and the point guard reached 40 points on two occasions, tying the Bucknell standard for a single-season.
Creamer leaves Bucknell with her name in the top-3 on all but three all-time career lists, and as the holder of 16 school records. She has also broken or had a share of 19 Patriot League records. With 2,462 career points, Creamer stands in 33rd on the NCAA all-time scoring list and is only the 47th player in NCAA history to record over 2,400 career points.
Bucknell finished the 2002-03 season with a 13-15 overall record, ending the season with a loss to Holy Cross, 66-63, in the semifinals of the Patriot League Championship Tournament.