Saturday 2/24 at Lafayette

[CHIP72]

I’m at the latest edition of the Lehigh/Lafayette rivalry in men’s basketball. The Mountain Hawks shot the ball well early in the 1st half and played excellent defense throughout the half to take a 37-26 lead into halftime.

[CHIP72]

Lehigh struggled in the 2nd half offensively and Lafayette made a few runs, but the Mountain Hawks hold on for a 71-63 victory. The visitors extended their lead to 20 points (50-30) early in the 2nd half and the game looked like it might be over. But the Leopards got back within shouting distance with a 13-2 run to pull within single digits at 52-43. Lehigh though responded with a 6-0 run and though the hosts pulled within 7 points multiple times, they got no closer.

Lehigh never trailed in the game.

[Justafan]

To paraphrase Mark Twain, "the rumors of Brett's demise may be greatly exaggerated"

At the moment, Lehigh is in 2nd Place in the Patriot League, just 1 game behind Lafayette. American is a half game back but plays Colgate tomorrow. Of course we have Colgate in another week.

With 2 games remaining, we are on the cusp of getting a home game but this league outside of Colgate is really, really balanced.

BTW, I'm gladly eating crow for stating that I didn't believe could repeat their win over Lafayette after watching their last meeting. I am pleased to be wrong.

[RichH]

That was fun. We are a different team with Higgins coming off the bench. The frosh guards have leveled up Sydney a sparkplug and the bigs rebound. We still can shoot 3s with much consistency but we can score.

[ngineer]

Yep, with the men now at full strength, they have a a decent shot of making it to the finals where anything can happen in one game.

[Eastonpa]

Seemed like really good crowd/energy there at Kirby.

If only could replicate in Bethlehem . . . .

[Old Timer]

Location, location, location! Off campus arena is not attractive these days.

[jimk72]

As noted, Stabler crowds are usually a very intimate group. But this year’s first Lafayette game at Stabler (2/10) was an electric crowd of close to 2,000 for what turned into a double overtime thriller. If we could just get the Stabler family to blow up Stabler, buy four or five blocks of south side Bethlehem, and then build Stabler-2 from the Sojka plans…..

[CHIP72]

Seemed like really good crowd/energy there at Kirby.

If only could replicate in Bethlehem . . . .

The funny thing about Saturday’s game is there was a group of Lehigh students, probably about 20 or so fans, who sat (or more accurately, stood) directly behind the core of the most vocal Lafayette student section (which was located in the end court seats near the Lehigh bench). Those LU students were probably the most vocal fans at Kirby Sports Center.

The game wasn’t a sellout, but there weren’t many seats available either. Good fan turnout for both teams actually; most of the two sections behind the LU bench were filled with primarily Lehigh fans and Lafayette fans filled most of all of the other sections with some Lehigh fans sprinkled among them.

Incidentally, I attended what was likely the largest attendance crowd in Lehigh/Lafayette men’s basketball (and LU hoops at Stabler Arena) history, a crowd of 5206 for their regular season matchup at Stabler 20 years ago.

[Justafan]

I'll assume that was when Lafayette's "zoo crew" was near it's peak. I miss that atmosphere.

I seem to remember Stabler being packed during the Krizansky, Mbonu years in the late 80s-early 90s and the Quennan-Polaha years just before that. Great times!!