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Friday, August 04, 2006
Summer session
The WWLIS has posted its Patriot summer session.

Not a lot to quibble with in the piece, which focuses mostly on the high expectations Bucknell has created. Not much news in the piece by Andy Glockner, either. Nothing against Glockner, who is very knowledgeable about the game overall, but we can't help but wish ESPN had let our old buddy Kyle Whelliston do this piece.

Glockner is a power conference guy. Whelliston knows the mid majors almost as well as he knows soy milk and Boca Burgers, and knows a lot more about the Patriot League than major conference types. It's hard to imagine, for example, Whelliston hearkening back two seasons to Bucknell's wins at Pitt and Saint Joe's, instead of mentioning wins like Syracuse and DePaul from last season as examples of what the Bison have done out of conference.

We also doubt Whelliston would speculate Lehigh might be better on offense with an incoming freshman running the point than it was last season with Joe Knight, or even Mitch Gilfillan, who might have been the most underrated senior in the league.

Glockner also seems a little dismissive of Colgate, who has an awful lot of talent back this season.

Perhaps the part of this piece we found most interesting was a quote by Lehigh coach Billy Taylor in the sidebr:
"[Success in the nonconference schedule] is very important. Bucknell was able to do a great thing and Holy Cross has been able to fare very well in those nonconference games against some higher-conference opponents. That's where we still have room to grow. We want to be very consistent in our challenging of nonconference opponents and win one of those games, two of those games, which will give us [more] confidence going into conference play. We've done well in the Patriot League, but doing better in the nonconference games [is the next step.]"
No arguing with what Taylor said. But we wonder if this year's Lehigh schedule actually reflects that philosophy.
Published at 8:47 AM by Hoop Time.
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