Reply To: Coach Reed to Central Michigan?

[Bison137Participant]

I think that most fans outside of the Lehigh Valley would view the Winthrop job as more desirable – although perhaps not a major upgrade.

Factors in favor of Winthrop include:

– Much nicer arena
– Much larger crowds
– Significantly better student support
– Higher salary
– Much lower academic standards = much larger recruiting pool
– Subjective, but many coaches would prefer living in the Charlotte area to living in the Bethlehem area.

Also Winthrop had a 4-year run from 2005-08 when it was better than any 4-year period in Lehigh history. The only year in the past decade when they were significantly worse than LU was 2012.

As for seeds, Winthrop was seeded 14th, 15th, 11th, and 13th in consecutive years. Perennial 16 seed? Compare their four seeds to the LU seeds in 2004 and 2010. Like LU, Winthrop also won an NCAA tournament game (2007).