Skip to main content

This Weekend in Lehigh Sports 01/05/2007

While waiting to put together my "Lehigh's recruiting needs in the offseason" blog post, I'm going to continue to break down the Lehigh sports scene for this weekend after a rough week for basketball, but a surprisingly solid performance at the Southern Scuffle in wrestling.

Last weekend, Lehigh placed five at the Southern Scuffle to successfully shake off a slow start to finish 11th, just barely beating Pitt and Virginia, while finishing just behind Ohio State and North Carolina. Senior heavyweight Paul Weibel was the star, taking out Joe Fendone of Edinboro before eventually falling to the defending national champion Cole Konrad of Minnesota in the semifinals. He apparently almost got the pin before bowing out - overall, seems to me (who doesn't know a lot about wrestling) a great job.

This weekend, it's off to the west coast to compete in a grueling five duals in three days. Cal State-Fullerton, American, Arizona State, Stanford, and UC-Davis are on the offing this weekend. None are ranked opponents, and though they should be good competition, you'd hope that there's a good shot that we can fly back from the west coast with one dual win here.

Our men's basketball team has been officially solved by two beatable teams: Monmouth of the NEC (6-8, 209 RPI) and Columbia of the Ivy (8-5, 191 RPI). What's more disheartening is the way we're losing: getting either embarassed (getting hammered in the 67-39 loss to Monmouth) or losing on huge mental errors (committing a foul with a 1 point lead with .4 seconds to play in a 55-54 loss to Columbia). Let's face it, teams have figured it out: triple-team our best scorer, senior G Jose Olivero, and make someone else beat you. Not exactly the way you want to go into your league schedule this weekend vs. American at Stabler on Saturday.

This team, on paper, is better than their 5-11 record and (ugh) 288 in the RPI might indicate. Injuries to the big guys below have killed us as well, but what's really killing us the most is not playing consistently and making terrible errors of judgement down the stretch. But the time for making mistakes is through. Hopefully with American this Saturday at home we get things started, and getting our first (!) road win this year at Navy will be equally as important. If not, well, you'll be hearing a lot about Lehigh football recruiting this winter.

The women's team, loaded with seniors, also disappointed in a 66-56 loss to Yale, giving the Elis their first road win since November 21st. Like the men, it seems like they're simply not playing with enough consistency to be a favorite going into league play. Only senior Sara Ellis and sophomore C Melissa Rich hit double-figures against Yale, with five of Ellis' points coming at the line. Rich has been a find at center, and (once again) on paper this is a team that should be running for the title, but there are too many Yale games where it's potential unfulfilled.

And with Army playing like they're on fire, Bucknell not too far behind, and Navy and Holy Cross waiting in the wings, it's time to get things consistent once again in time for American and Navy this coming week. Hopefully next week it will all look better.

Comments

Anonymous said…
its really simple, the TEAM needs to step up and make plays. The Mens team has been dissapointing so far. Jose is not our only player, we got Hall, Neptune and White. All have potential to be big players on this team. Lehigh needs to step up in league play and make up some lost ground. Its time to be better and step up!!!
Anonymous said…
Time to step up in the world of sports cliches. Leave nothing in the locker room, give 150%, play your "A" game and want it more than they do.

Popular posts from this blog

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results.  In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago .  Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth.  Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.  Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.  The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

 We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season.  The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League.  In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play.  Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ .  I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care.  Every face was glum.  They didn't even seem sad.  More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Fifteen Guys Who Might be Lehigh's Next Football Coach (and Five More)

If you've been following my Twitter account, you might have caught some "possibilities" as Lehigh's next head football coach like Lou Holtz, Brett Favre and Bo Pelini .  The chance that any of those three guys actually are offered and accept the Lehigh head coaching position are somewhere between zero and zero.  (The full list of my Twitter "possibilities" are all on this thread on the Lehigh Sports Forum .) However the actual Lehigh head football coaching search is well underway, with real names and real possibilities. I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. UPDATE: I have found five more names of possible head coaches that I am adding to this list below. Who are the twenty people?  Here they are, in alphabetical order.