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The Week In Lehigh Sports: 12/6/2006

I know I promised to get to Lehigh Football's All-Patriot League awards, and I have a few awards of my own to give out as well, but with the Lehigh Men's basketball team travelling to Princeton tonight to play the always-tough Tigers, I wanted to give a little preview of the men's basketball, women's basketball, and wrestling teams for this coming week.

Tomorrow I'll get to the football accolades, I promise!

Men's Basketball
After beating the NEC's Central Connecticut State 55-52 last Saturday (on a last-minute shot by G Jose Olivero), Lehigh meets their basketball nemesis tonight when they face Princeton. We may as well call them "daddy" after looking at their overall record against us: 29-2, with our last win coming in 1930. (22 consecutive losses. 22!) Our super-freshman G Marquis Hall had better be ready to play some defense: the Tigers have been known to launch it from 3-point land a lot this year at a 40% clip. Not to mention the added aggravation they show you with their 27 passes before taking a shot, backdoor cuts, and the like.

It doesn't get any easier at University of Miami this weekend (yep, that University of Miami, Donna Shalala, Bernie Kosar, and the like). Hurricane G Jack McClinton is hitting 55% 3-pointers per game, the starting 5 are all playing extremely solid... oh heck, let's not get depressed about this. Oh, did I mention that they just upended #21 Georgia Tech last Sunday as well? I know it's early, but Miami has the look of a team that will not be mired in the lower-echelons of the ACC this year.

As much as I would be overjoyed to see a win in either of these games, the truth is I'd be quite happy to just keep both games competitive. We're 4-6 now, but if you see a 5th win in either of these games, prepare to party.

Women's Basketball
The Lady Hawks lost a heartbreaker to Akron at the end of their "Farm Aid" tour to Ohio, in a 62-61 heartbreaker. F Adrienne Blount had another great game from the forward position, but G Sara Ellis had another tough day from the outside. On the bright side, the Lady Hawks at 2-6 just finished their 4 game "road trip from hell" and will be back in Stabler Arena for two upcoming games against winnable teams.

Tomorrow they play America East's Binghamton (2-5), and then play D-III NJIT on Saturday in two very winnable games. Getting a head of steam up before they face national powerhouse N.C. State of the ACC will be critical. Also getting the defense in order would seem to be a priority: the Lady Hawks are giving up 63.5 points per game on their brutal road trip.

Wrestling
Predictably, Lehigh's grapplers fell out of the coaches' Top 25 this week, but an opportunity exists to have pollsters take notice again with key dual meets versus longtime rival Penn State (95 meetings!) and Pittsburgh (51 meetings!). Key to our chances of taking both meets will by the Ciasulli brothers - Seth, the freshman in the 133 weight class, is 4-2, while Matt, the senior in the 141 weight class, is 7-1.

Comments

bison137 said…
1. Don't panic too much about having to play Miami. True, they had the good win vs Georgia Tech but they also have recent losses to Buffalo and Cleveland State.

2. NJIT is D1, not D3.

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