Lehigh Football Nation

The debate may continue, but Lehigh won't be playing on Saturday as the men's basketball teams' season came to a bitter end late last night. The Patriot League issued a statement and appeared to take Lehigh's appeal very seriously, but in the end, as the Morning Call's Andre Williams mentioned today, ended on a technical point which shows that the officials did indeed follow the rules, even though the error was acknowledged. ''We thoroughly reviewed all of the available information, including the applicable NCAA rules and the broadband feed, and it appears that the shot left the player's hand after the clock expired,'' Carolyn Femovich, the Patriot League's executive director, said in a statement. ''The fact that the official's decision on the last-second shot impacted the outcome of the game is regrettable. ''There was a veteran officiating crew working the game. We expect game officials to manage the game according to...

Our basketball season is over. But should it be? Granted, Lehigh played horribly. But there's a controversy brewing over this game. Read the Morning Call's recap: Stunned Lehigh Plans to Appeal Loss Freshman Josh Miller made a running bank shot after the buzzer sounded (as video from Lehigh's Web site, lehighsports.com, showed) that lifted Army to a 47-46 win over Lehigh in the Patriot League tournament quarterfinals at Stabler Arena. Lehigh coach Billy Taylor, more animated than ever, said he planned to appeal. ''We have to fight the fight because it was clearly after the light went off, so we are going to continue to fight until they say we can't anymore, and then we'll fight some more,'' Taylor said. ... It was the only Lehigh home game this year against a Patriot League opponent that Service Electric TV2 did not broadcast. Therefore, officials Jeff Smith, Jeff Bryant and Jack Sweeney did not have television video to review. But Lehigh official...

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...

Last week, I talked a little bit about some of the realities in regards to athletic recruiting in the Patriot League in today's world. If you hit the link above, you'll see an in-depth talk about the Academic Index (or AI) used by the Patriot League (modeled after the Ivy League's own AI), as well as a talk about the shrinking pool of athletic recruits available to all Ivy and Patriot League schools, and some of the idiosyncrasies that scholarships offer Patriot League institutions in our sports that allow them. Today I'll talk more about the Ivy and Patriot League's AI system, and how it fits in with the big world of football recruiting on a national level. But first, it's worth talking about donuts. Donuts, Chuck? What the Hey!?! Not only are donuts tasty (and against all odds are a popular breakfast "food"), the best way to describe athletic recruiting in terms of the Ivies and Patriot League teams is using the analogy of donuts. Let's think...

With the Lehigh wrestling team taking the weekend off before the EIWA wrestling championships, the focus turns to two struggling teams hoping to close out their regular seasons with much-needed "W"s on senior day. Who needs their win over Holy Cross more? Probably the women's team - who possibly can escape the possibility of playing powerhouses Bucknell or Army if they win Saturday at 7:00PM. The Lady Hawks could finish anywhere from 5th to 8th depending on the results from Saturday. Conversely, the men's team has third place locked up and will host a first-round playoff game even if they lose on Sunday at 1:00PM (by virtue of their regular-season sweep over American, the 4th-placed team). But riding a three-game losing streak is NOT the way to enter Patriot League tournament play, which is what both our basketball teams face going into this weekend. The way both teams played their past two clangers, both teams are going to need to turn things around immediately ...

With every single one of Lehigh's winter sports teams laying a humongous egg this weekend, and with the reality of Lehigh's recruiting class now fully digested by all you Lehigh football fans out there, it's time to delve into one of the favorite offseason topics: the state of Patriot League football, the types of football recruits we can get, and what steps to take, if any, to move forward. It's a complicated subject, to put it mildly. That's why I'm subdividing this into a "series" of blog postings to go over the state of the league. Part I will introduce about the Patriot League recruiting and compare it against the Ivy League in particular, Part II will consider football recruiting against full-scholarship and partial-scholarship FBS and FCS schools, and Part III will consider where to go from here. Who Are We, Really? The Patriot League is a Division I sports league that competes in Football Championship Series (FCS, formerly known as I-AA) and ...

Sure, there's two huge dual meet this weekend versus ranked opponents for Lehigh's wrestling team. Sure, the men's basketball team has an always-huge game against Lafayette in Easton on Sunday. But no game in the Lehigh Valley is more important than the women's basketball team this Saturday at Kirby Sports complex. Why is that? The Lady Hawks (9-16, 4-7) have a unique opportunity - to enter the postseason Patriot League tournament at Navy either as cannon fodder for Bucknell or a chance to wear the home jerseys for a game and put themselves with an opportunity to sweep their way into the NCAA tournament. With four teams at 4-7 (including 6-20 Lafayette) and two more at 5-6 (including next weekend's opponent Holy Cross), if Lehigh can find a way to win these three games this week, you have to like their chances in the tournament to possibly make a run. Beat hated rival Lafayette this weekend, beat league leader Bucknell at home on Wednesday, and finish off Holy ...