Lehigh Sports Happenings, Dec 7th-Dec 13th

With exams coming up, this weekend will be featuring the last competition from the Lehigh winter sports teams until the week before Christmas. But there's plenty happening this weekend to whet your appetite for Lehigh sports.

For you FCS football fans, you can catch the FCS semifinals tonight at 8:00PM on ESPN2 (Richmond versus Appalachian State) and tomorrow on ESPN at 4:00PM (Delaware at Southern Illinois). My preview of the weekend football slate you can read here.

Wrestling (4-5)
12/7 No. 5 PENN STATE (Stabler Arena, 7:00PM)

With an encouraging 2-1 record over the last week, the grapplers sure could use a strong showing this weekend against a Nittany Lion squad that should provide a great atmosphere tonight at Stabler in the 96th meeting between these two wrestling rivals. Penn State has dominated us the past four years in duals, and with six nationally-ranked wrestlers for the Lions, it's looking like an awfully daunting challenge for our "David" to slay their "Goliath" in this one. The key match of this dual will be the one involving 184 lb sophomore David Craig (and our only nationally-ranked wrestler) facing off against Penn State's Phillip Bomberger, current ranked No. 19 by Intermat magazine.

Women's Basketball (2-5) (Sagarin: 221, down 5 from last week)
12/8 NJIT (1-6) (Sagarin: 304) (Stabler Arena, 3:30PM)
12/10 OHIO (3-4) (Sagarin: 106) (Stabler Arena, 7:00PM)

Although the trip to Florida pretty much went according to the script, the Lady Hawks returned from Jacksonville beach to give LIU a major scare at home before falling 53-49 in a valiant effort. Freshman G Erica Prosser earned her first start and made the most of it with 19 points on 8-for-13 shooting, while sophomore G Alex Ross added 10 points of her own. The problem is, the dynamic duo accounted for more than half of Lehigh's points on the night - but if a consistent inside scorer can emerge, Lehigh could be a dangerous team down the road.

NJIT looks like a good chance for a Lady Hawks win, while Monday looks to be more brutal competition for the Lady Hawks in Ohio out of the MAC, where guard Lauren John (16.4 ppg, 6 rpg) could be a tough guard for the Lady Hawks to handle.

Men's Basketball (3-4) (Sagarin: 269, down 16 from last week)
12/8 HARVARD (4-5) (Sagarin: 211) (Stabler Arena, 1:00PM)

The Hawks look to go into exam time building off their 67-58 win against NJIT... and more time to forget their 65-55 performance against Central Connecticut State. Head coach Brett Reed switched from a 2-3 to a three guard set, giving sophomore G Dave Buchberger his first career start. Buchberger proceeded to make coach Reed look real good by nabbing 21 points and 5 rebounds. Tellingly, Lehigh finally beat a team on the boards Wednesday - outrebounding NJIT 37-33.

Harvard, skippered by former Michigan and Seton Hall coach Tommie Amaker, will hardly be an easy out. The Crimson have battled to a 3-4 record, with brutal games against Stanford and Providence for starters. Although Harvard did lose to Holy Cross earlier this year, just a week ago they shocked Michigan 62-51. If Lehigh hopes to win this game, they had better improve their Patriot League-worst field-goal percentage defense (.433) against Harvard's extremely balanced attack with four starters averaging double figures.

If Lehigh could go into the "exam break" with a big win here to get back to .500, it would be a great accomplishment for the 'Hawks. It will probably take another great game from budding superstar sophomore G Brant Hall.

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.

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