Arcadia – Game 12

Forum Forum Lehigh Sports Lehigh Men’s Basketball Arcadia – Game 12

This topic contains 21 replies, has 1 voice, and was last updated by  LUHoops00 12 years, 3 months ago.

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  • #4192

    LU65
    Participant

    Game Notes

    http://www.lehighsports.com/assets/1/wo … /47092.PDF

    #4197

    LU65
    Participant

    Some will say why play this game? Not me. I think it’s a great sign of sportsmanship that we offer to Arcadia University*, a proud D-III program just 40 miles to our south in Glendale, PA, this chance to take us on. Make no mistake about it, while this may be a distraction to many of our players on what is literally the eve of final exams, it’s Arcadia’s ticket to the BIG DANCE and a crack at a Top 100 D-1**program. No one associated with their basketball program today will ever forget it. And, if you should get out to Stabler tonight, take a long look at the visitors bench and those seated behind it in Section 5. Try to appreciate what these non-scholarship players, family members and friends are experiencing. Try not, however, to feel sorry for them. Except for height (no one over 6’5") and experience (they’ll start 3 freshmen), they’re players who know how to score the basketball (averaging 69 pts/game) and who would love nothing better than to see themselves in the Philadelphia press tomorrow morning and on ESPN tonight as the team who upset Lehigh.

    * Founded in 1853, Arcadia is a top-ranked private university in metropolitan Philadelphia offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees to more than 4,000 students. Undergraduate and graduate students choose from among 80 fields of study and enjoy personal attention in the classroom with an average class size of 16 and a 13:1 student to faculty ratio.

    ** KenPomeroy 88, Sagarin 91, RPI 126

    #4198

    lehigh90
    Participant

    This should be pretty lopsided from the opening tip. With Arcadia liking to push the ball and play uptempo, I think Lehigh has a good shot at going over the 100 point mark tonight. Our walk-ons would probably be starters at Arcadia. Personally, I don’t really care about the starting 5 in this game. I would like to see one of our 6-10 players go for 20+, and would like to see AD, SC, CS, CB and JM play well.

    While I agree this is a great game for Arcadia to schedule, sort of like Lehigh getting to play at Michigan State, I don’t really want to see D3 schools on the schedule. I would rather see another game like at St. Joe’s or at some decent A10 or Big East school. But, it seems like there is always an Arcadia, Muhlenberg, Albright, F&M, or Lebanon Valley on the schedule.

    It is interesting to me that Lehigh recruits poorly in the 2 major recruiting hotbeds less than 100 miles from campus (Philly and NYC). It might make some sense to play more games in those cities to improve recruiting. That is why I like St. John’s on the schedule this season, and St. Joe’s last season. They get some players from those areas, but for some odd reason, they recruit better in Cental Iowa and Washington State than they do in their own backyard. There are a ton of stud players in the Catholic leagues in Philly, NYC and N Jersey, and a ton more in the public leagues in Philly and NYC, and we should get more of them. DC/Baltimore is also rich in talent. Recently, from Philly and NYC leagues you got Carrington and Baltimore this year, but they are few and far between. AD is fairly local as well. JM is suburban N Jersey. Reed needs to cultivate those recruiting connections in those leagues, or consider bringing in some connected guys to be assistants that know those leagues.

    When you think about the studs over the last 25 years that played in the program, a lot of them were local guys. But, that has been de-emphasized lately.

    Queenan – Norristown, PA (Philly public)
    Polaha – Allentown
    Krizansky – Hazelton
    Mbonu – Philly Catholic (I think, Roman?)
    Eppehimer – Pottstown
    Carrington – Philly public (Masterman)
    Rashawne Glenn – Not sure, but played HS in NJ Prep league
    Chuck Penn (I think was local Philly guy, but can’t recall)

    Lately their great players were:

    Logie (Washington)
    Marquis Hall (Oregon)
    McCollum (Ohio)
    Olivero (Virginia, DC suburbs)
    Rowland (Maryland, DC suburbs)

    Next potential 1,000 point scorers Knutson (Iowa) and Greiner (Washington). Freshman class has another Iowa and a Canada, next year’s class has New Hampshire (really England), Ohio and Maryland.

    They are neglecting a lot of talent rich local areas, and playing games there would help. It is great to recruit nationally, but there is so much fertile talent close to home. I guess it stems from the coaching staff. Going back, guys like McCaffrey, Duke, and Sal M were local guys who had Big 5 roots, and recruited heavily there. Then, when Billy Taylor came, that was lost, and Reed is not a local guy either. It would make a lot of sense to add an assistant who coached high school ball in NY or Philly and knows the recruiting there, both in high school coaches and AAU teams. .

    #4201

    LU65
    Participant

    Can’t argue with you Lehigh90 when you say you’d like to see more A-10, Big East teams on the schedule. We all would. But, that’s easier said than done. And, it’s all but impossible to convince them to come to Stabler. I truly believe the Arcadia game was a filler to roundout the schedule and meant to provide the fans (you, me and the other 500 of so faithful) with at least another home game (dreadful home (4) / away (12) slate this year) but more importantly to get our underclassmen/bench players some desparately needed court time. Overall, I can’t find to much fault with a 16 game OOC schedule tainted, if you will, with one D-III opponent. Gone, hopefully, are the "two a years" when from 2002 to 2006 we would see the likes of both Swarthmore and Haverford on the schedule.

    As for recruiting, I haven’t a clue on how our three assistant coaches do what do in blanketing the country. Apparently Antonio Wyche has PA, MD, DE, DA and 17 other territories. Stephen Ott gets NY, NJ and 10 other states while Krueger has 17 states, plus Canada and International countries. That’s a lot of nights on the road and countless hours in foreign gyms and time spent looking at film. I’m amazed at the talent we do have knowing our limited resources. Ott appears to be the only "local" guy with time spent at Siena and SUNY/New Paltz. Perhaps, in part, the adage, "win and they will come" applies here. Nothing like a 22 to 25 win season with 4 appearances on national tv to draw interest in your program. Hopefully that lies ahead of us this year. Another blow to recruiting I believe is the poor to absent press coverage in the NYC and Philadelphia markets. You’re lucky to get a score no less a story. And, there’s a story to be told with CJ and Company – was last year, is this year and will be next year. Time to call the Media Relations guy at Lehigh, I guess.

    #4203

    lehigh90
    Participant

    LU65, I know I am preaching to the choir by complaining about the home schedule. I just find it hard to believe we can’t get a better home slate and more balanced. Wouldn’t schools like Hofstra, Drexel, and Iona come? I guess the answer is they won’t, but you would think we could get some schools from the CAA, and the better schools from the Metro Atlantic to come. When we get games vs. those leagues it is always the weaker teams.

    The recruiting is a very interesting topic. You realize how small the network is of coaches. Lehigh basically has an entire coaching tree stemming from Fran McCaffery’s time at Lehigh in the late 80’s. He leaves Lehigh, after the Queenan/Polaha success and turns that into an assistant’s job at Notre Dame under John McLeod. There he meets Billy Taylor and Antoni Wyche as players. Billy Taylor eventually becomes the head guy at Lehigh and Wyche is now an assistant at Lehigh. Reed works under Taylor at Lehigh, and becomes the head guy when Taylor leaves to go to Ball State. Krueger went to Lehigh, although I don’t remember him as a player. Ott appears to be from upstate NY (Ulster Co), but he is also hooked into the McCaffrey tree from Fran’s time at Siena, where Ott was an assistant. So, it is very apparent, that when anybody needs a coach there is a hotline from Bethlehem to Fran McCaffrey or Billy Taylor.

    On to the current assistants. Antoni Wyche played at ND, but I think grew up in the Albany, NY area, not exactly a hotbed. He was a player though, at a fairly high level, starter at ND. Krueger spent time at Lehigh for college, then time at the NJ Nets, VCU and Oklahoma. He does not appear to have any great recruiting roots. Ott went to SUNY-New Paltz, so he, like Krueger does not appear to have a pedigree on the hardwood, then was at Siena with McCaffrey.

    McCaffrey, obviously, had great Philly connections in the Big 5 as a player and a coach. So, he was a solid Philly recruiter. I would put him in the same vein as other Big 5 disciples like Frannie O’Hanlon at Lafayette. When it comes to Philly, those guys know the landscape. Flannery, when he was at Bucknell was a PA guy, so he had solid ties from his time in Pottsville. Matt Langel, the new head coach at Colgate, is also a Big 5 Philly guy, from his playing days at Penn, and his time on the bench with Fran Dunphy at Penn and Temple, so I would expect him to be recruiting Philly and S Jersey (where he grew up) heavily in the future. You look at a guy like Jeff Jones at American and know that from his playing days at UVa and his coaching time there, he is very dialed into the Virginia and DC/Balt area high schools, which is a tremendous recruiting area. Logie was able to sign a number of Pacific NW guys when he was an asst (Hall, Mgebroff, Greiner, Hamilton) because he knew the landscape of coaches from his time there. So, location and connections are everything in recruiting.

    Lehigh’s current group of coaches is very scattered in their backgrounds, which, I assume, is why they recruit nationally. They have nobody on the staff with great hooks into Philly, NYC or Balt/DC, and I think that is a mistake. But, it is apparent that when you are looking for coaches you hire who you know or spent time with elsewhere.

    #4207
    Bison137
    Bison137
    Participant

    "lehigh90" wrote: Krueger spent time at Lehigh for college, then time at the NJ Nets, VCU and Oklahoma. He does not appear to have any great recruiting roots.

    I know nothing at all about Krueger but I think it’s safe to say he has very limited recruiting roots. He was at Rutgers, VCU, and Oklahoma – but was never a coach at any of the three. Thus he never even spent a minute recruiting, with the exception of his year at Lehigh. His time with the Nets is emphasized on his bio – but he was only a coach there for a short time and then got fired. No idea what the issues were. Also he has not worked at the AAU level.

    This is not to say he might not be a really good recruiter – just a comment about his "recruiting roots". Of course the PL has had a number of assistants with shallow recruiting roots.

    BTW, it appears he never played for Lehigh. Curious how he ended up being a coach. That’s always a tough transition with no college playing background.

    #4209

    LUHoops00
    Participant

    Lots of good comments, hope I continue the trend.

    1.) Only one DIII team a start, when I was there it seemed like every third OOC game was a DIII schoool, but, having said that this program is a legit mid-major team and the need for DIII teams on the schedule is gone. I’d rather see them play a bad bad DI team as the pre-finals game. We’re getting nothing accomplished by killing this team tonight, nothing at all.

    2.) As for scheduling in general, if we can’t get anyone to come to stabler, and by anyone I mean opposing teams(and fans for that matter), I’m a huge fan of Reed’s philosophy this year in terms of taking our talents on the road. You learn a lot on the road, you bond with your teammates on the road, and you face pressure situations more on the road. Already, we’ve played a weekend long tournament, played on ESPN2 in queens ny, played in front of 14K at iowa state, these are experiences you can’t get at home. However, speaking of fan situation, if you want to get fannies in the seat give them a tough opponent to come see, and to 90’s point a St Joes or team from Big 5 in Philly is who I’d like to see rivalries born with. Offer 2 or 3 for 1’s(two or three trips to their barn for one here), that is how you have to do it.

    3.) As for recruiting, I’m going to agree and disagree at the same time, using that lehigh diploma right here. I’m going to big big agree with you 90 on fertile recruiting grounds within two hour drive from campus. No question there is talent around the local area, but every coach in the local area and all over is hitting up philly and nyc. I almost think for a mid-major like us, where you hit it big is on the outskirts/tough to get to places where you find guy not everyone is in on. Now I know with AAU everyone sees everyone, or so they say, but we’re done pretty good from state of washington(logie, zo, mgebroff) to portland(hall) to ohio(cj) to mich(greiner) to iowa(gabe)….and now chuku from nh prep via new england next year off beaten path…in other words, less competition for those guys..its like researching a stock, everyone covers microsoft, and everyone knows everything about microsoft, but a nice undercovered small cap tech company has mega upside. In last ten years, only real philly/ny kid that has worked if I recall was Z. Keefer never panned out after good frosh year, AD jury is still out but upside looks to be bench/tolr player type guy, prentice small didn’t work out, maneri didn’t work out, szachowloski didn’t work out, I was a big kyle nepture fan but he didn’t crush it…Sure I missed someone but these guys come to mind over last 8-10 years from ny/phily.

    Back on scheduling, next years schedule will be very very interesting, especially depending on how we end the year….teams could really not want us at all, so Reed is going to have to work to find good/challenging games for us. By the way, we played a ton of NY state road games this year, we’re trying to get brand out there, not lack of effort when you see the different ny games we’re playing this year.

    Good luck with finals team, get your studies in and keep your grades up, and stay academically sound cause next semester could be one of the most memorable 3 months of your lives, so learn from the football team and keep your grades up and your non-hoops life straight and clean.

    LUHoops00

    #4210

    lehigh90
    Participant

    As expected, 40 point win, didn’t cross the century mark. Nice game for the bench guys. SC was my 20 point bench guy, with 19 on 6-11 from the field. He made some 2’s. If anybody was at the game, did he score off the dribble? CB with a nice effort, and JH with a big game. Staggers and Goodman in the scoring books as well, which is nice to see. Would have liked to see Bailey get off.

    ’00, I do agree with you, about finding the jewels in the non-hotbeds. It is a solid strategy and Lehigh has been using that strategy well. But, you can’t forget about Philly and NYC. You get a late bloomer from a solid city school, and they could turn out to be the best player to ever go to the school (a la Daren Queenan). Sometimes, I think Lehigh out thinks themselves with recruits. I would rather have a starter, non-superstar from a powerhouse Philly or NY program, than a 7 footer from a tiny Christian high school in rural America. Give me a bench guy from St. Anthony’s in Jersey City or Roman Catholic in Philly or Dunbar or Dematha in Balt or DC, and they might be a 1,000 point scorer at Lehigh. There are less surprises with AAU the way it is. I would just love Lehigh to hire an assistant who was a successful high school coach in NYC Public or Catholic League or Philly Public or Catholic league.

    Lehigh hasn’t recruited Philly worth a crap since Dave Duke was the head coach. He was an ex-Philly high school coach (Catholic League), and he has landed a lot of guys at Lehigh and as an assistant for Dunphy at Penn and Temple. Obviously, he wasn’t the greatest head coach, but he has had a solid coaching career at this point. And, they have never recruited well in NYC. But, really my original point is I would love to see series with schools in those cities that would open up recruiting (Drexel, St. Joe’s, Lasalle play PL teams), then some of the smaller mid-major NY schools (even a St. Peter’s on the road is better than Arcadia, NJIT, or FDU). A school like LIU is successful and they probably don’t recruit 20 miles outside of their front door.

    It reminds me of TCU in football. They sign a class of 30 recruits and none are outside the State of Texas. And, they built a solid Top 20 program at a school of less than 5,000 students. When all of the studs are right there, take advantage.

    #4212
    Bison137
    Bison137
    Participant

    "lehigh90" wrote:

    A school like LIU is successful and they probably don’t recruit 20 miles outside of their front door.

    I agree with a lot of what you said, but you picked a really bad example with LIU. Of their top 8 players, 4 are from Texas, 2 from Maryland, 1 from Canada, and 1 from Massachusetts. Including the subs, they not only have more players from TX than NYC, they also have more from Canada!

    #4213

    lehigh90
    Participant

    Sorry, replace LIU and insert Iona, thinking of wrong school.

    #4217
    StablerBum
    StablerBum
    Participant

    After being out of town, I’m going to throw my two cents in on these topics:

    Regarding recruiting, I agree with Hoops that recruiting nationally is necessitated by the PL and LU admission standards. If the staff were just looking for ballplayers, it’s true that they probably wouldn’t have to leave the NYC, Philly, Baltimore, D.C. corridor – but that’s not the case. Every school in the country is mining the talent in those places, a good example is Kansas State who had an assistant with D.C. area roots that was responsible for bringing Michael Beasley and a number of other D.C. kids out to Kansas. Just because we are relatively "local" won’t give us much of a leg up, and when you consider the academic standards – the staff can’t really limit themselves geographically at all. If they find some midwestern regions and AAU programs that pump out academically oriented ballers then by all means keep going back to that well.

    I wouldn’t mind seeing some truly local kids from the valley in the program. I know the Lehigh Valley isn’t a basketball hotbed – and Lehigh did take a walk-on flyer on Brian Hunter, but occasionally there are players and it might help with attendance and media coverage. For example Jon Ward from Parkland had a couple low D1 offers and tried to wait them out. They were eventually pulled, and he ended up going D3 and is preaseason all american as a jr, has already gone over 1,000 points, and has averaged about 18 ppg for his career at Ursinus. Oh and he’s 6’10 and shoots 63%. I really hope the staff atleast LOOKED at him. And Darrun Hilliard – from Bethlehem and now starting at Villanova as a freshman should have been offered a scholarship – even if he was never going to take it.

    WRT the schedule. I think the days of playing D3 have passed. Doesn’t help the team, doesn’t help the RPI and doesn’t excite the fans. Clearly we have an issue getting teams to come to Stabler – so why don’t we pay them? Take an extra 1 or 2 garauntee games a year – and turn right around and give it back to someone else. Tell Hofstra (or Iona, or Drexel, or VCU, or Richmond) that we want a 4 year series – 2 at their place and 2 at ours – and we’ll sweeten the deal with $50,00. The schedule seems to have only 2 kinds of teams – BCS and cupcakes. The BCS teams will NEVER come to Stabler, and even I can’t blame fans for not coming out to see Maryland Eastern Shore or Central Connecticut State.

    #4218
    StablerBum
    StablerBum
    Participant

    oh and most importantly – this could very well be the best team LU has ever had, so who cares where the kids come from?

    #4219

    gohawks63
    Participant

    The best player I’ve seen in the Brown and White, aside from CJ, is Zahir Carrington. I don’t know how we were able to snatch him from metro Philly, but it would seem they could employ him as a pretty potent recruiting tool in his home area. I believe he is still on campus but I don’t know his role exactly ..

    Arcadia may seem like a needless cakewalk in retrospect, but we just finished a very tough road stretch. We could very easily be looking at a losing record and perhaps this game would have provided a confidence boost if things were not going so well. Just a thought. Glad to see SC was able to have a big night. Perhaps he’ll get on a roll now ..

    #4223

    norcalfan
    Participant

    "StablerBum" wrote: oh and most importantly – this could very well be the best team LU has ever had, so who cares where the kids come from?

    I agree overall, the team is deepest I have seen. Any player can contribute depending on the night. One important point you make which we all seem to forget, these are student athletes and their parents should be proud. LU does not accept just anyone. They may not be on the court every night, but they are all highly intelligent, that goes for all the PL schools.

    #4224

    norcalfan
    Participant

    "gohawks63" wrote: The best player I’ve seen in the Brown and White, aside from CJ, is Zahir Carrington. I don’t know how we were able to snatch him from metro Philly, but it would seem they could employ him as a pretty potent recruiting tool in his home area. I believe he is still on campus but I don’t know his role exactly ..

    Arcadia may seem like a needless cakewalk in retrospect, but we just finished a very tough road stretch. We could very easily be looking at a losing record and perhaps this game would have provided a confidence boost if things were not going so well. Just a thought. Glad to see SC was able to have a big night. Perhaps he’ll get on a roll now ..

    What about Hall? He was Reed’s guy.

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