Lehigh men’s basketball ends six-game skid with Rivalry win

The Lehigh men’s basketball team dominated Lafayette 86-47 Jan. 25 at Stabler Arena.

The Mountain Hawks (7-12, 2-6 Patriot) are in last place in the Patriot League with ten games left in the regular season. The Leopards (8-13, 3-5 Patriot) are in seventh place. Lehigh entered the game on a six-game conference losing streak, but snapped it with the statement victory.

Sophomore guard Nasir Whitlock scored 21 points off the bench and senior guard Tyler Whitney-Sidney added 15 more.

“Teammates found me in the right spots, coaches drew up the right plays, God gave me the ability to go out and make those plays out there,” Whitlock said.

Whitlock shot an efficient 8-16 from the field, including 3-5 from three. He also added three rebounds and three assists to his totals. In addition to Whitney-Sidney’s 15 points, he added six rebounds and four assists. First-years Edouard Benoit and Hank Alvey scored 17 and 12 points respectively, rounding out Lehigh’s double-digit scoring efforts.

Senior center Justin Vander Baan led Lafayette with 11 points on the night. He was the only Leopard to reach double figures as the team struggled to generate efficient offense. 

Lafayette would hold only one lead throughout the game, leading 2-0 with 18:38 left in the first half. After that, Lehigh would go on a 9-0 run led by two Whitney-Sidney buckets to recapture the lead and never looked back.

With 14:22 left in the first half, Whitlock immediately caught fire off the bench, scoring 10 in a row to give Lehigh a 20-point lead. 

Whitlock and Whitney-Sidney would continue their scoring barrage throughout the half as both would finish with 13 and nine points respectively to end the period, leaving Lehigh with a 43-21 halftime lead. 

The second half started off the same as Lehigh would jump out to a 51-29 lead with seven quick points from Benoit five minutes into the half. 

With eight minutes left in the half, Whitlock would score another bucket to increase the Lehigh’s lead to 30 and a bucket from sophomore Josh Ingram with one minute left in the half would eventually give the Mountain Hawks a 40 point lead with the score reaching 85-45. 

After the final buzzer, Lehigh would be on top 86-47. 

Lehigh’s defense held Lafayette scoreless from three the entire game, forcing them to shoot 0-22 from three, and 31.5% from the field. 

“We knew (Lafayette) can shoot the ball and when they get going, they can be very difficult to stop,” Lehigh coach Brett Reed said. “It was a matter of fighting as hard as we could, trying to get our hands up and contest and close out as hard as we could and just have tremendous defensive energy.” 

Compared to Lafayette’s inefficient offensive display, Lehigh dominated on both ends of the court. The team made more than half of their shots and went 9-17 from beyond the arc. On the defensive end, the Mountain Hawks out-rebounded the Leopards 41-24 and recorded seven steals.

The team’s 86 points was their highest scoring output in a conference game this season.

Whitney-Sidney said the momentum from this game and the leadership can help the team make another Patriot League Tournament run after last season’s championship appearance.

“We lost like five out of our last six by less than six points. A brutal way to lose, but I think for us, it’s just staying the course, and knowing we got to continue to do the same thing over and over and over night in and night out,” Whitney-Sidney said. “We know it is a long season, and we have a lot of games left to go, and so for us it’s just to continue the hard work to stay with the process.”