Reply To: Game 6: LaSalle

Forum Forum Lehigh Sports Lehigh Men’s Basketball Game 6: LaSalle Reply To: Game 6: LaSalle

#29804

lehigh90
Participant

Have seen them live now twice (0-2) and after being fairly upbeat after Xavier and Princeton, I am not after tonight’s loss. This is not a great team yet. Tonight’s game to me came down to a few things. First off, athletes. La Salle was just bigger and more athletic at every position. The transfers they brought in are beasts and that happens when guys transfer from Syracuse, Memphis, South Carolina and Auburn. Big athletic players. This Lehigh team is probably our most athletic team. BA, KL, JC, KR and AP are athletic guys but they looked like middle schoolers matching up with La Salle. Even Holba was giving up a lot of size and quickness in the post. Number 2, just not enough bodies for Lehigh, especially big bodies. TK and MH both got in foul trouble and nowhere to turn. Very short bench and 3 bench guys were DNP (actually DC got under a minute).

Third reason they lost, poor defending, both in post and on perimeter. Reed tried to mix and match, playing a fair amount of zone with man. He saw early, that he was outathleted, so tried to go zone. But La Salle destroyed the zone and shot incredibly well from deep. Had to switch back to man and then just couldn’t stop dribble penetration. Also, poor rebounding led to a lot of second shots. La Salle was long and active on boards. So, disappointed with loss but just not enough athletes to compete. That is also La Salle’s best we saw tonight.

Good things that bode well for future.

TK has been a beast (not tonight, but so far)
MH is really solid player
BA is a killer off the dribble, really quick
KL also really good
JC very good freshman
KR solid, just very small and slight, but tough

Have been a little disappointed in AP so far. He’s been passed a bit in pecking order. But, team needs more depth to be really good. Shocked DC has such a tiny role so far.

Thought Reed should have fouled earlier late in game. They had some guys to put on line and we could have traded FT’s for FG’s and 3’s earlier. Didn’t foul until too late.

Terrible crowd for La Salle. Poor weather didn’t help.