Lehigh Weekend: Men Must Win - And Hope

Lehigh Weekend: Men Must Win - And Hope - To Get A Home Game

The men's basketball team has not made things easy for themselves this weekend after their 72-51 embarassment at Sojka Pavillion on Wednesday. With 15 points in the first half in that game against Bucknell - that's not a typo - it's amazing to think that 15-12 Lehigh (Real Time RPI: 243) is still in the running for the No. 4 seed.

But should Lehigh win at 15-13 Holy Cross (Real Time RPI: 177) - and get some help from Navy or Bucknell - Lehigh will be hosting a first-round game for the third straight year.

Think the athletic department is upbeat about Lehigh's chances at 3:30 p.m. at Worcester? Think again:

The Mountain Hawks last win over the Crusaders in Worcester was a 70-69 victory on February 11, 1998. Since then Lehigh has averaged 53 points per game with a high of only 67 in the 1999 meeting. The last time Lehigh defeated the Crusaders in Worcester Justin Maneri was eight years old and the number-one song in America was Celine Dion’s "My Heart Will Go On".

If Lehigh stands a chance in Worcester, it will depend on the play of senior F Phil Anderson, who was owned on Wednseday by Bucknell F Patrick Behan and only scored 2 points and 2 boards. As great as junior F Zahir Carrington is - and he got yet another double-double on Wednesday with 15 points and 12 boards - Lehigh needs help under there if they are to win any more basketball games this year. It may help that Holy Cross has wrapped up the No. 2 seed whatever happens on Saturday - but on "Senior Day", Crusader head coach Ralph Willard certainly won't want to end their regular-season careers with a loss.

If Lehigh wins, they will likely be the No. 4 seed if either Colgate or Army loses. If Lehigh, Colgate and Army all win, Lehigh would be the No. 5 team and travel to Hamilton next Wednesday. But if Lehigh loses, they could finish as low as No. 7 and face a return trip to Worcester next week.

****

The 22-6 Lady Hawks (Real Time RPI: 81), clinched the regular season Patriot League title by virtue of their 69-60 win over Bucknell. That, and the fact that Lehigh is hosting of the first two rounds of the women's Patriot League tourney, means the Lady Hawks have given themselves the best possible chance to head to the Dance - and with a perfect 13-0 record at home this year, this weekend's tilt against 13-15 Holy Cross (Real Time RPI: 184) will not only be for the seniors but for an undefeated regular season at home for the second time in their history.

Congratulations to the Lady Hawks - they sure earned the next two weeks playing at home.

Coach Sue Troyan will be starting the seniors - senior G Tricia Smith, senior G Ryan Ingalls, senior F Haly Crites, and senior C Melissa Rich - but don't be shocked if sophomore G Erica Prosser (14.7 ppg) and junior G Alex Ross (13.2 ppg) make a quick entrance.

All the games will be broadcasting live on lehighsports.com.

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....

UMass 21, Lafayette 14, halftime

Are you watching this game? UMass had this game under control until about 3 minutes in the second quarter, and then got an interception, converted for a TD. Then the Leopards forced a fumble off the return, and then converted THAT for a TD, making this a game. It's on CN8. You really should be watching this.

Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though? Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me? Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything. Everything. The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who...

Lehigh Football Nation

Search This Blog