Useless holiday trivia

[jimk72Participant]

With the holiday break upon us and little going on, I noticed the LU Sports website had updated the basketball archives to include team and individual records up to and including the 2012-2013 season. Great stuff for college basketball wonks like me who enjoy mostly useless but sometimes interesting trivia and have a slow day. Such as, who has Lehigh played the most in program history? The most played is pretty obvious, but the rest of the list (50 or more games)is interesting to see how some schools have changed their level of competition over the years. The list:
Easton Prep 217
Bucknell 161
Muhlenburg 111
Rutgers 103
Army 98
Gettysburg 84
Colgate 83
Delaware 82
Navy 67
Swarthmore 62
Holy Cross 52
Rider 50
One other: all time Lehigh wins and losses……. Pre-Billy Taylor….797 and 1,198 (.3994), Taylor- Reed combined 196-142 (.578). Despite this recent success Lehigh still has the 8th most losses in NCAA history, but at least now we’re headed in the right direction. With the current group of kids odds are the trend will continue! Happy holidays!

[RichHParticipant]

LOL thks for the Christmas present.

[sundayamqbParticipant]

Great stuff, JimK. Merry Christmas to all.

If you’re bored, try doing the same for football. … wonder how that will go …

[toddcuddParticipant]

After seeing this, I had to go look up Fran’s record. In my head, his tenure is when we turned the corner in hoops. Though, as I caught the tail end of the “Ps and Qs” era while at South Mountain, I might be biased. Grabbed these bits from Iowa’s site, though:

In three seasons as head coach at Lehigh, he compiled a 49-39 overall record and guided the team to the NCAA Tournament in 1988. At the time he was the youngest head coach to reach the NCAA Tournament. His Lehigh teams had two winning seasons in three years and the 1987-88 squad’s 21-10 record remains the best in program history. Lehigh had just four winning seasons in the 55 years prior to his arrival.

The bit about “best in program history” is now out-of-date, but anyway…

and this one

McCaffery has posted seven seasons of 20 wins or more as a head coach, including five in the last seven years. McCaffery, who won his 300th career game as a head coach on March 9, 2013, against Nebraska, has served as head coach at four institutions: Iowa, Siena, UNC-Greensboro and Lehigh. The four teams had a combined record of 35-84 (.204) prior to his arrival. By year three, they had a total record of 89-45 (.664).

[jimk72Participant]

I agree MCcaffery did a great job. He changed the culture and became the first coach with a winning Lehigh career (49-39) since good old Charlie Lingle’s one year career (13-1) in 1925-26. But after Franny, Dave Duke and Sal Mentesana put us right back in the dumper. Sal is of particular note as he helped usher in athletic scholarships in basketball while compiling a 43 and 125 Lehigh career record. He does however go down as the best dressed coach in program history.

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