Lehigh Football Nation

The NCAA released academic progress rate information on all their member schools, and - here's a shocker - Lehigh and the Patriot League in general had stellar APR numbers . Nine Mountain Hawk teams had perfect scores of 1000 - meaning, every single athlete on those teams carried more than a 2.7 GPA and made progress towards graduation. One of those teams was the men's basketball team, including a certain player named G C.J. McCollum who will be hearing his name called in the NBA Draft later this month. The full data, for Lehigh and Patriot League football and basketball, is included below.  (Including incoming members Boston University and Loyola University (MD).

(Photo Credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images via the Morning Call) The Oscars?  Not so much, anymore. The Grammys?  Boring as hell to me.  The Tonys?  Are you kidding me? That was my general reaction to all the national awards shows going into this summer - and don't get me started about the 'B' list of such shows, like the Golden Globes, MTV Music Awards, or the like.  (Even the Razzies don't really have my interest level anymore.) But then again, I've never had a personal interest in any of them. You see, ESPN's sports-themed awads show, the ESPYs, nominated Lehigh in their "Best Upset" category with - perhaps you've heard? - their victory over No. 2 seeded Duke in the NCAA Tournament. And, suddenly, and unsurprisingly, ESPYs-mania takes over the Nation.

You know by now that Lehigh is going to the Big Dance. You know by now that they're facing off against Duke in Greensboro, North Carolina on Friday ay 7PM, to be seen nationally on CBS. You knew, too, that there would be Madness surrounding the trip to the NCAA tournament. But quite this much Madness? When Lehigh faced off against Kansas two years ago, Lehigh's odds of winning the tournament were put at "a Googleplex-to-one".  Literally . This time around, though, I can tell you this - it's not a Googleplex anymore.  And a whole lot of fans around the Lehigh Valley think maybe, just maybe, this team can bring down Mike Krzyzewski 's team on the 20 year anniversary of Christian Laettner 's shot and only two years removed from beating Butler for their most recent championship.

On Monday, a lot of student-athletes attended Murray Goodman stadium to do what they came to Lehigh to do: graduate. A few days after their undergraduate careers ended, it's worth celebrating one last time their achievements on the field and off.  There are no "Playstation 3 Studies" majors here: there are a significant number of double majors, business and engineering majors, however. Not everyone will stop competing as Mountain Hawks, but their academic careers are still making a huge step in a new direction, and it's worth noting.  Best of luck to the class of 2010 - and good luck to some of the Lehigh athletes I've written about over the last four years. While there are a lot of great Lehigh athletes who graduated this year, for the teams I follow the closest in terms of football and men's and women's basketball, here's one last celebration of their accomplishments.  (more)

(Graphic Credit: RushTheCourt.Net) Before I get back to football, there's one more pressing matter I need to address before the eyes of America turn back to Major League baseball and the endless speculation if Butler head basketball coach Brad Stevens will be heading to fill Holy Cross' sudden vacancy at head coach now that Sean Kearney was terminated after one disappointing year .  (Either that, or he's going to depose ex-Lehigh head basketball coach Billy Taylor at Ball State if David Letterman has his way. ) No, it's the hottest off-the-court topic in the land: whether the heavily-expected merger of the NIT and NCAA Tournament will make March Madness, worse or worser.  Is 64 perfect, and 96 terrible?  Will it mean there will be no more Butlers , as New York Daily News writer Dan Weiss opined?  Is it only about the money , as CBS Sports ' Dan Ratto thinks? Ratto is correct - for what it's worth - since part of it is certainly creating more games to ...

It used to be - once upon a time - that the spring was my quiet season, when I didn't really comment that much about sports.  But with Lehigh making it into both the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournament, it's been a lot more compelling to follow all the action and keep a close eye on the proceedings.  (Even though my Villanova/Temple Final four pick seems, in retrospect, crazier than picking Lehigh to upset Kansas in the first round. ) Usually by this time of the tournament, my NCAA pools are busted wide open, the out-of-control athletics departments at, say, North Carolina or Kentucky are looking at winning the national championship, and I'm busy breaking down the offensive and defensive spring rosters for Lehigh football. But a funny thing happened on the way to inevitability: Butler won me over.  Maybe it's because I'm the fan of a "smaller conference", or maybe it's because I'm genetically programmed to root for the underd...

(Photo Credit: The Seattle Post-Intelligencier) It was more of a battle than some in the state of Kansas thought. Kansas did have to bring more than their "C" game. But Kansas is an awfully good team, and their physical play wore down a game Lehigh team in the end.  They are a well-deserved No. 1 team and No. 1 seed. Lehigh did its best Rocky impersonation.  The Mountain Hawks have nothing to be ashamed of, battling hard until the very end. But Kansas, coach Bill Self and the rest of the Jayhawks were better.  And they're a great team. Good luck Jayhawks through the rest of the tournament.  (more)

As the week has gone one, it's just gotten madder and madder. It's been a week where Lehigh was picked by one person to get to the elite 8 thanks to our 12th man, 7'1 junior C David Safstrom ; a rallying cry from the West Coast to root for junior G Michael Ojo , who hails from Santa Monica, California, and the topper: the revelation that Pizza Hut will offer the university 10,000 free slices of pizza if Lehigh can shock the world tonight.  (A reminder of the good old days: in the 1990s, when Lehigh used to score more than 70 points in a game, the local McDonalds used to give out free hamburgers if you had a ticket stub.) Pizza Hut had better start getting those ovens ready. (more)

(Photo Credit: Kansas Athletics) Sports fandom has its legends.  One of the best was Maryland lawyer Robin Picker, a fan of the NBA's Washington Bullets who used to sit behind the visiting teams and heckle the opposition in creative, side-splitting ways.  He's best well known, though, for reading aloud passages of " Jordan Rules " to Michael Jordan and " Maverick " to Phil Jackson during the game - and getting ejected from the stands numerous times. Snappy dresser and Kansas head basketball coach Bill Self has inadvertently set himself up for such a situation this Thursday - should an enterprising young Lehigh fan be able to pick up a copy of Bill Self's uncontroversial 2008 autobiography At Home in the Phog . Say what you will about Mr. Self, he hasn't been shy about tooting his own horn.  There's no doubting his success, but is it possible that the guy who offered "an inside look at his journey into becoming one of the game's m...

(Photo Credit: Associated Press c/o The Wall Street Journal) Lehigh athletic teams have certainly seen long odds before, but the USA Today 's article on the NCAA tournament has to be a first . USA TODAY's resident sports analyst Danny Sheridan has released his odds for winning the NCAA men's national championship and -- no surprise here -- Kansas and Kentucky lead the way. But there is some good value on the board, such as Villanova (20-1), Michigan State (30-1) and New Mexico (60-1). The Lobos were unbeaten in six games against Top 25 opponents this year. As for the rest, the list is below. Just don't put too much on Lehigh (10 googolplex-1). The bright side?  All the members of the Lehigh basketball team actually could tell you what a googolplex is. (Who'd like to take the wager that nobody on the final four contending teams could even pronounce it correctly, let alone know what it means?)  Still - and this is not a surprise - America is basically...

(Photo courtesy Bucknell Athletics) It was a March Madness just like any other - or so it seemed. Kansas sat at No. 1 in the RPI.  On March 18th, they were about to play an NCAA tournament game in Oklahoma City, at the Ford Center - a place they knew well, as the home of leaguemate Oklahoma State.  They had to wait past 9:30 PM - after Northern Iowa would finish their first round game, of course - to play a Patsy, if you will: the Patriot League champion, a team with no expectations for a win. Or did they? On March 18th, 2010, Lehigh will play Kansas for a chance to shock the world in Oklahoma City.  But on March 18th, 2005, Bucknell played Kansas for a chance to shock the world - and did, 65-64. (more)

Before the game this Friday, I didn't have a good feeling about Lehigh's chances. That's not to say I didn't have confidence in Lehigh's abilities as basketball players.  I knew they certainly could win it, and had the ingredients to win it: leadership, in the form of co-captains senior G Marquis Hall and senior F Zahir Carrington .  But nagging memories of Lafayette's 90-75 victory in February still lingered: and that maybe, just maybe, they would shoot the lights out again and deny these two Lehigh superstars a shot at a championship and the NCAA tournament. Thankfully, Carrington simply refused to let that happen. It was a true team performance to get Lehigh the championship - let's be clear about that.  But what folks will remember through the ages was that Zahir simply refused to lose this game. (more)

I'm not the first to say it, but it's hard to believe that this has never happened before. Lehigh and Lafayette have both made the NCAA tournament before - three times.  The Leopards and Mountain Hawks have made it to the title game about a half dozen times since the tournament field expanded to 64. There have even been a few pretty good tournament games with Lehigh and Lafayette facing off. But never at the same time, and never in a game of this magnitude. (more)

(Photo courtesy Jim Middlekauff, The Express-Times) It's a matchup that would seem destined to pack the house at Stabler.  Lehigh vs. Lafayette.  It's less than a marathon's worth of mileage between the two schools.  They're two fanbases who seem like they're always at each other's throats.  Lehigh and Lafayette fans work together, live next to one another - and usually don't talk to one another when they're facing off in whatever sport they're playing in. But historically, the bad blood between the Lehigh and Lafayette fan bases in hoops hasn't always been there.  It exists now - still stemming, largely, from the football Rivalry - but it wasn't there for a very long time. It probably helps that Lehigh's basketball history has been pretty checkered - to put it mildly - while Lafayette's hoops teams, after some early issues (and losses to Lehigh), actually has had some serious hardwood success, including multiple post-season ap...

(Photo courtesy: Brian Freed, the Easton Express-Times) In John Feinstein's book on Patriot League basketball, " The Last Amateurs ", the sometime commentator on the CBS College Sports Network said Lehigh was first and foremost "a wrestling school". With three basketball victories this weekend that weren't even close, the Hawks hoops teams have suddenly and resoundingly put that characterization into question in terms of winter sports. While this weekend's EIWA wresting championships were somewhat disappointing to the Lehigh wrestling faithful, both the men's and women's basketball teams made sure there will be two more championships coming to Stabler Arena this weekend.  Let's put it this way: buy your tickets - and make plans for early dismissal - on Friday. (more)

Lehigh athletes don't " play for pizza ", but they do play for the postseason: the NCAA's, if you will.  And while the STAR will be focused on the EIWA nationals this Saturday and Sunday , that's hardly all that's going in in terms of postseason Lehigh action. As EIWA's first rounds are completing, the Lehigh Lady Hawks will be attempting to qualify in a first-round game of their own up in their personal house of horrors, the Hart Center in Worcester, Mass - and if they win, they'll be rewarded with an early afternoon game on Sunday there, too - potentially against the home team. And that's not even including both men's Patriot League semifinal basketball games, one at 1:00 at "that school in Easton" and the other a few hours after the conclusion of the EIWA nationals. Please don't tell me you have something better to do this weekend.  (more)

(Photo Credit: Brown and White) No, really, what are the odds? There are eight teams in the Patriot League in basketball.  No team has been dominating the last four years.  So you'd think that the chance that Lehigh would play the same first round opponent would be pretty small.  Remember Probability & Statistics 101?  1/7 * 1/7 * 1/7 * 1/7 = a pretty damned small percentage. Yet that's what's happened in the first round for the fourth straight year.  Lehigh faces off against Army - a team that has beaten us whether we've been the No. 3 seed (2007, where we lost on a last-second layup with no time remaing on the clock, 47-46), the No. 4 seed (2008, when we lost 64-61 in overtime) or the No. 5 seed (2009, where we lost 53-30). Now, we're the No. 1 seed.  Will it be different this time?  Everyone around the Lehigh basketball program is hoping that this time - and for the sake of the seniors - it will finally be different.  (more)

(Image credit: The Original Bracketology Blog) I know, I know, it's a wee bit early to think about brackets already when neither the men or the women have played a single game in the Patriot League tournament.  But it's March, it's officially when the Madness starts to take hold, and - well - people are talking about it.  (more)

It's been a dream ride for Lehigh this year in terms of winter sports.  Wrestling?  Try a 5-0-1 dual record - tied for tops in EIWA with eight wrestlers ranked in the top 33.  Women's basketball?  Try a 26-3 record, an RPI of 75, and the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament starting at Holy Cross this Saturday. And the men's wild and crazy ride in a daffy Patriot League regular season has ended with only the sixth freshman athlete in the 23 year history of the League to win both freshman of the year and player of the year .  Freshman G C.J. McCollum unanimously was voted the honor thanks to his 23.5 points per league game and - frighteningly - seems to be improving his overall game every time he hits the court.  "Jay" - as well as senior F Zahir "Z" Carrington , senior G Marquis Hall and freshman F Gabe Knutson making second team all-League and the all-rookie team respectively. And - oh yeah - we also got the No. 1 seed in the Patriot League tourn...

In the Patriot League this year, there is no time for disappointment in the men's basketball title chase. One game - one lousy game - separates the top four teams.  And the outcome of two games to end the year could mean the difference between possible home games in the semifinals and finals - or a tough assignment on the road. A win tomorrow versus Bucknell at the STAR would mean a lot more than revenge for the "one that got away", where junior G/F G.W. Boon 's six points down the stretch and freshman F Mike Muscala' s big free throws erased a 10 point deficit and delivered an 81-76 overtime win at Sojka .  It would put Lehigh in the drivers' seat for the Patriot League tournament.  Ever hear the expression "the playoffs start now?"  You could say that about the game tomorrow - and hopefully Lehigh's basketball team will be celebrating with some ground Bison. (more)