Lehigh men’s basketball falls to American 78-75 in overtime

Editor’s Note: Lehigh now sits in ninth place in the conference following the conclusion of all Patriot League games for the Saturday slate of games.

Coming off a 94-68 rout against Colgate University in front of a national television audience, the Lehigh men’s basketball team had higher conference seeding in mind.

The only obstacle in front of them was American University, the top-seeded team in the Patriot League.

In a back-and-forth affair, American defeated Lehigh 78-75 in an overtime game at Stabler Arena on Saturday.

Graduate student center Matt Rogers and senior guard Elijah Stephens led American to dominate.

Rogers’ 27 points led the Eagles (15-10, 9-3 Patriot League) in scoring, while Stephens added an additional 23 points. The Lehigh defense struggled to contain the veteran players, who both shot over 60% from the field in an efficient scoring night.

“(American has) graduate students, and they also have seniors, and in many respects, we have some younger players,” Lehigh coach Brett Reed said. “I thought, if you look at it, our team competed, and they battled against a team that’s got experience and has won a lot of games.”

While American’s stars scored efficiently, the home team struggled to find consistency.

Shooting woes hurt the Mountain Hawks (9-14, 4-8 Patriot League) as they finished the game shooting 67.6% from the foul line and 17.4% from three.

Senior guard Tyler Whitney-Sidney led the Mountain Hawks with 19 points. Sophomore guard Josh Ingram added 14 points, scoring entirely in the second half and overtime. First-year center Hank Alvey totaled 12 points, making him the third-leading scorer for Lehigh.

Whitney-Sidney, Alvey and senior guard Ben Knostman were the only Mountain Hawks to make more than half of their shot attempts.

“Our shooting percentage hurt us, and I would also say we left a lot of points at the free throw,” Reed said. “We had 11 missed free throws within regulation, and out of that, some of them were even one-and-one opportunities.”

Reed said when a team doesn’t shoot well from the three-point line or convert well from the free throw line, it puts a lot of pressure on the defense.

The last time Lehigh squared off against the Eagles, it was a tight-knit game. It came down to the wire, and Lincoln Ball hit a buzzer-beater to give American a one-point victory.

The rematch seemed destined for a similar result.

In the first half of Saturday’s game, both teams were deadlocked with each other, with the largest leads being six points throughout the half. American would go up 15-9 at the 11:07 mark of the first half. Lehigh would attain a six-point advantage at the 4:37 mark after Alvey made a layup to put the score at 25-19.

The Eagles cut the lead to four, closing the half with Lehigh up 29-25. Whitney-Sidney and Rogers had 10 points for their respective teams going into the break.

The second half proved to be much of the same back-and-forth action. Throughout the period, until the 1:51 mark, a pair of free throws by sophomore forward Matt Mayock gave the Eagles a 61-55 lead with under two minutes to go in regulation.

Sophomore guard Cam Gillus and Whitney-Sidney would score two clutch buckets, one three and one layup respectively, to cut the lead to 61-60 with a minute remaining. The teams traded blows until Lehigh found themselves down 64-62 with 16 seconds left in the game.

The Mountain Hawks missed two three-point attempts but crashed the glass hard. The effort led to Ingram getting fouled with one second left in regulation.

Ingram calmly went on to make both free throws, sending the game into overtime. Ten of his 14 points came from the foul line, as he shot 10-12 from the foul stripe to go along with a team-leading six rebounds.

“I wasn’t too aggressive in the first half, so I feel like to give us a winning chance, I had to be more aggressive in the second half,” he said. “I did, and, you know, the refs were calling calls all day, so I just had to try to get to the line and make a rest.”

In the overtime period, American jumped out to an early 66-64 lead off of a Stephens layup directly out of the tip, and the Eagles didn’t look back. Four straight points from Rogers would extend the lead, including a dagger fastbreak dunk, putting the Eagles at a 74-66 lead with less than a minute to go.

Stephens’ free throws capped off a 12-2 scoring run in overtime, giving American their largest lead of the game at 76-66. However, some late heroics by Whitney-Sidney and sophomore guard Nasir Whitlock would cut the lead to three after a couple of steals and buckets.

Lehigh ended the game by scoring nine points in the final minute, but their efforts fell short.

Despite the loss, Whitney-Sidney said he was satisfied with how the team battled, but he acknowledged the young team still has a lot to clean up as they approach tournament play.

“I think our fight is there, and so you can’t be mad when you watch this, because it’s never a game we’re out of,” he said. “I just think right now there’s certain points in the game where we get punched in the mouth and when it’s not responding and quick enough.”

Lehigh has six games left on their schedule. With only two games separating the Mountain Hawks from home-court in the first round of the Patriot League, the team is still going for a top-five seed. 

Regardless of seeding, Whitney-Sidney said the team is excited to play in the postseason.

“The future’s bright and, you know, hoping by the time (the) Patriot League tournament comes, everyone’s ready, ’cause they gotta see us again, and we’re all just excited for every game that comes,” he said.

Lehigh’s next game is on the road at Navy (8-17, 5-7 Patriot League) on Wednesday at 7 p.m.