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Obviously, the players expect to win the game, or at least I hope they do. But, when a PL team goes on the road to play a Top 20 team in the nation, I think it is fair to say that “nobody”, meaning every pundit who thinks about college hoops, expects them to win. Same as nobody expected them to win at Michigan State last year, although they gave them a hell of a scare. And, “nobody” expected Lehigh to beat Duke. Although, a few on this board, myself included, picked Lehigh to win, as we liked the matchup where we thought Duke was soft in the frontcourt. Believe me, my favorite games of the year as these OOC games against big-time programs. I will root like hell, but I don’t expect us to win it. Lehigh beating Duke was by far the best game I ever attended in my life, thrilling did not even begin to describe it. But, in that game, I think a few on this board had a feeling. For some reason, I don’t have that feeling today. But, I surely hope I am wrong. What I mean by a throwaway game, is that it is OOC, and nobody nationally expects us to win. If you win, it is huge, and if you lose, it’s no big deal as nobody expected us to win, anyway.
One final note in your post about beating Duke in front of 15,000 in Greensboro. I don’t know the actual announced attendance that day. I do know the building was mostly empty. There was one section of Lehigh fans across from the benches, and about 2 sections of Dookies behind the benches. The rest of the place was very scattered with mostly left over Carolina fans in their Carolina Blue just hanging around. It was a disgrace if you are a Duke fan to play in an empty arena in Greensboro. I am sure, after Lehigh won the game, the attendance figures have escalated, as people are probably telling others that they witnessed the game, but if Greensboro holds 19,000 to 20,000, I would put the attendance figure at maybe 6,000, and that may be a stretch. There were huge sections of empty blue seats that day, although it didn’t take away from the experience.