Tonight at 7:00PM, the Lehigh men's basketball team will be battling Army in the first round of the Patriot League tournament, and if you're in the area you had better show up! It's postseason basketball, man, and anything can happen. Win, and we play again; lose, and the season is over. During the regular season we lost at Army 64-59, but we beat the Black Knights at Stabler 75-64. In our loss, senior G Jose Olivero had 7 points. In our win, Olivero had 30 points. No bonus stars as to what we need to do to win tonight and move on (probably) to Sojka in Lewisburg, PA to face Bucknell.
In a bit of a surprise, coach Taylor is starting a three-guard lineup with two good ballhandlers in freshman G Marquis Hall (no surprise) and sophomore G Tim Szalachowski (a surprise), which means senior C Jason Mgebroff will be coming off the bench. I love Patriot League tournament time, and I'll be following on the radio. (If you're not near a radio, you can also follow along on lehighsports.com.) Notice that it looks like the game will NOT be on Service Electric 2, so either you have to get to a radio, get to a computer, or get your butt to Stabler, to find out what happens.
This is a first for the Patriot League tournament venues hosting all the first and second round games. In an article written by Andre Williams of the Morning Call, Patriot League executive director Carolyn Femovich, Bucknell head coach pat Flannery and Lehigh head coach Billy Taylor weigh in on the new format:
''I expect that we are going to stay with this for a number of years,'' said Carolyn Femovich, the Patriot League's executive director. ''I think the one thing that might cause us to go in a different way is that, if we found a neutral site that was somewhat central for our membership, that would allow us to bring everyone together without a home-court advantage, and I think we'd look seriously into that.''I happen to agree with all the folks quoted above that we should have a centrally-located location for the Patriot League tournament. And I have the perfect venue in mind. Why not the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, NJ?
Not all coaches are in favor of this current format.
''I'd love to see the tournament at one site,'' said Bucknell coach Pat Flannery, whose Bison could possibly host all three tournament games. ''I'd love to see us go to Hershey or the Wachovia Center [in Philadelphia] or something. I just think that's fantastic.''
The neutral-site format is beneficial for other reasons.
''I also like it for our team because I think you can prepare for teams quicker,'' Flannery said.
The quarterfinal and semifinals in the 2002, 2003 and 2004 tournaments were held at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, Md., a rural suburb of Washington, D.C.
It attracted few fans, but at least all eight teams opened play at the same site.
The Patriot League women's quarterfinals and semifinals will be contested at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., March 3-4.
''We've tried a number of different formats just in my five years being in the league, so I'll see how this works,'' Lehigh coach Billy Taylor said.
Aside from the fact that it's a stone's throw from where I live (and, by the way, many Patriot League alumni), it's fairly centrally located (almost equidistant from Worcester, MA and Annapolis, MD), it's a reasonable-sized venue for schools of our size (its capacity is 9,000, not as cavernous as the Wachovia center, for example), and just last year they were hoping to host part of the NCAA women's basketball tournament. For them, hosting the Patriot League men's and women's tournaments would be the perfect precursor to hosting men's or women's tournament games.
It looks to me that all you'd need to do is talk to the Trenton Titans (an ECHL club) to go on a road trip the first week in March. Am I the only person thinking that this sort of arrangement would be a win/win for everybody?
Comments
Love, Matt