Lehigh University Athletics
Pundit praises LU performance
9/15/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Somehow, some way, the Lehigh men’s basketball team keeps coming up with a reason to believe. Instead of grumbling about all the losses the Mountain Hawks have endured this season, maybe Lehigh fans should cheer the effort this downtrodden team continues to give.
A 4-21 record and 10-game losing streak are two pretty good reasons for any team to quit.Yet, Lehigh never has - and didn’t Wednesday night.
The Mountain Hawks came out as if a championship was on the line, flying up and down the floor and swarming Lafayette with unbridled hustle and emotion.
"I think the first thing we want to do is prove ourselves to the public," said Lehigh star scorer Matt Logie, who scored a team-high 26 points in Wednesday’s 98-93 loss to the Leopards. "We’re a close-knit team, and stayed that way through some adversity."
For a long while, it looked like Lehigh was the team that was gunning for second place in the final Patriot League standings, not destined to wind up at the bottom.
Center Bobby Mbom, playing his heart out, hit a turnaround jumper, backed his way in for a no-look reverse layup and made a steal from his knees at Lafayette’s end of the floor in Wednesday’s opening half. Matt Logie drained three 3-point field goals. Alan Goff rolled off 15 points in the opening 20 minutes as Lehigh constantly beat Lafayette up and down the floor. When Mbom converted a driving layup, the Mountain Hawks had a 43-23 lead with less than six minutes left to halftime.
It didn’t last, of course.
It rarely does for Lehigh.
The Leopards closed the first half with a strong run, cutting their deficit to eight points at intermission. Then Brian Burke won it at the end for Lafayette with an incredible 43 point performance that tied a Kirby Sports Center record, keeping Lehigh’s futile season spiraling.
One more game remains to the regular season for Lehigh - at Stabler Arena on Sunday against Bucknell - then a first-round game with American in the league tournament.
You just know the Mountain Hawks will come out of the locker room inspired for both because, somehow, they always do.
"What I was happy with," Lehigh coach Sal Mentesana said, "was we came out and had a good start."
OK, so Wednesday’s resilient performance came against arch-rival Lafayette – a showdown that never fails to get Lehigh pumped up.But the game before, Saturday afternoon against first-place American, the Mountain Hawks held a 15-point first-half lead before losing in the final minutes. And within a losing streak that has now stretched to 11straight, the Mountain Hawks suffered five-point defeats to Army, Navy and Lafayette, six-point losses to American and Holy Cross, and a three-point defeat in the return game with American. That doesn’t include a 92-85 overtime loss at Navy.
"You see teams with a losing record like ours," Logie said, "they don’t have a lot of five-, six-point losses. They have 30-point losses. That’s one thing that people don’t realize; we’ve maintained our competitiveness."
Losing is never easy on a team, especially one that tries to ignore the standings every night and sets its sights on success that is so elusive. As long as the Mountain Hawks keep trying, they might even find it someday.
Paul Sokoloski is a columnist for The Express-Times. He welcomes your letters at PO Box 391, Easton, PA 18044-0391 or e-mail to sports@express-times.com
