Reply To: Loyola in the PL as #10

Forum Forum Lehigh Sports Lehigh Men’s Basketball Loyola in the PL as #10 Reply To: Loyola in the PL as #10

#6542

lehigh90
Participant

OK, another question for the board (TMH and hopefully others).  How would you feel about a Lehigh jump out of the PL, and moving basketball to the A-10 and football to the Colonial Conference?  A-10 is losing a couple of basketball, actually, I guess all-sports, teams (UNC-C and Temple) in a year or two, and Colonial is losing a couple as well (ODU and Georgia St.)  Now that would excite me.  I am willing to pitch the academics a bit to play better competition, but I don’t want to pitch it to play the same competition.

But, the prospect of being in a conference in hoops with Butler, Dayton, Richmond, St Joe’s, Lasalle, St. Louis, St. Bonnie’s, VCU and Xavier, among others, would really excite me.  Playing football against, essentially, most of the top 20 in the country in the FCS, would also really excite me.  We would take a beating early in the A-10 in hoops, but, hopefully, we are not a Fordham, and we build a solid program in a multi-bid league.  Football, I think we could hang pretty well moving forward. 

Regarding prior posts on soccer and lacrosse.  I admit, I am not a huge lacrosse fan, so PL lacrosse doesn’t get me going.  I don’t live in the Lehigh Valley, so not going to travel for a game unless something really big like NCAAs.  Soccer, I am a huge fan of it, carry season tickets to MLS, and watch a ton of Euro stuff on TV.  But, American soccer is weak at all levels, so not going to travel for that either.

As stated in the past on here, I don’t like the size argument for Lehigh being small fries in athletics.  They have a top 10 wrestling program, top 10 lacrosse, top 10 FCS football, and a good showing in basketball (hope it continues and builds).  Most private schools in the FBS are on the smaller side.  We compare to the following (undergrads only):

Rice 3700

Army 4500

Navy 4500

Wake Forest 4400

Duke 6500

Tulane 8300

TCU 8200

SMU 7000

Tulsa 3000

Stanford 6800

Vanderbilt 6800

LEHIGH 4600

That list is nice company, by the way, academics and athletics.  Would be a great 12 team conference, if you don’t mind the travel.  Gotta dream big.