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Sunday, January 07, 2007
Putback give Lehigh a win over AU
Phil Anderson had 2 buckets and 6 rebounds. The last of each won the game for the Mountain Hawks

Anderson, a skinny 6-10 sophomore forced into the starting lineup by Jason Mgebroff's injury, got an offensive rebound and put up an off-balance jumper that fell with less than three seconds left to give Lehigh a 51-49 win over visiting American.

The win was sealed when Brayden Billbe was unable to duplicate Anderson's heroics after catching a long inbounds pass. Billbe was overthrown slightly on the baseball style pss from the far end, which he caught about three feet inside the foul line. His off-balance turnaround drew front iron and fell short at the buzzer.

While Anderson made the game-winning play, it was Jose Olivero who set it up. Olivero, who was held in check most of the game by stifling pressure from AU guards Arvydas Eitutavicius and Linas Lekavicius (and lots of help when he got past them), finished with 11 points, breaking his mini-skid of two sub-double figures games. His three pointer with the shot clock about to expire, Eitutavicius in his jersey and 1:45 left was as clutch as they come.

That put Lehigh up 49-47, but he fouled Eitutavicius at the other end and the Lithuanian calmly hit both free throws to tie it with 24 seconds left.

Every one of the 1,498 in Stabler Arena -- even the flute players in the middle school band that served as a dandy pep band with the Lehigh students on break -- knew was what was coming next, as Olivero took the ball out front with the clock ticking down. that didn't stop Olivero from beating Eitutavicius off the dribble and getting into the lane, where his progress was stopped by at least two American defenders coming to help.

They managed to force Olivero to miss, but in the process, they left Anderson all alone on the weakside for the rebound and put back.

Eitutavicius had 15 to lead American. Billbe finished with 11. But as a team, American was a horrendous 12 for 46 (26.1 percent) from the floor.

Sophomore John Gourlay came up as big as his 7-foot frame for the hawks, scoring a career-high 10 points in 17 minutes of exposing the defensive liabilities of Paulius Joneliunas and Billbe.

Lost in the drama of the win was a tremendous battle between the two top underclassmen point guards in the league -- Lehigh freshman Marquis Hall and AU sophomore Derrick Mercer. Score round one to Hall, who had 8 points, 2 assists, 4 steals and no turnovers. Mercer was 1 for 6 from the field (though not all due to Hall -- the 5-9 Mercer spends a lot of time driving into the trees in the paint), finishing with 4 points, 7 rebounds (sharing team honors with Billbe), 3 assists and 4 turnovers.
Box score | Postgame audio (Billy Taylor, Olivero, Anderson and Hall) | Express-Times | Morning Call (gamer) | Morning Call (column)



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Published at 9:40 AM by Hoop Time.
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