I have seen talk on various boards around the league and on Hoop Time about the lack of the Lehigh student section, and I felt the need to chime in. I am currently a senior out here, and must say that the situation is sad.

About four years ago a group of sophomores started regularly attending games and painted themselves (the L-E-H-I-G-H guys, you refer to them as). In the beginning they were usually the only students at the games, but word grew around campus that basketball games can be fun, and the team was starting to play a lot better, so some (stress some) students started to join them. Over the next few years, it turned into a nice student section that would travel to Maryland for the league tournament, up to Colgate for a game, up to HC a few times, over to Army and BU, and even having a better showing than the Zoo-Crew in their building. (Actually in one of your posts from two years ago, you commented on the presence of the Lehigh student at Lafayette in that game we lost).

Unfortunately, most of the original L-E-H-I-G-H guys have graduated, leaving me (although I never paint myself) and maybe about 8 other regulars. Most Lehigh students who do come will sit behind us and not really get into the game anymore. The atmosphere at Stabler is nothing less than depressing this season. I think it is a combination of the team not performing that well and these guys graduating. Another thing to look at is the distance that we must travel to get over to the game. If I am not mistaken, I think all Patriot League arenas are within walking distance of where most students live. You know this is not the case at Lehigh. Ultimately, this kills attendance. On top of that, the Athletic Department shows no commitment to Lehigh basketball. Very rarely do they promote a big game in ways that go beyond a few fliers around their building and outside the ticket office. We never get campus wide e-mails like HC students do. The student paper is a joke, when it comes to LU sports.

The whole situation is a mess out here, which is unfortunate. We have a great, young coach who is an unbelievable recruiter. We have the best freshmen in the league (by far) and possibly the player of the year (although his last few games may indeed hurt him). Students should want to see this team play and actively cheer them on. They really are missing something thousands of other students are getting across the country exciting college basketball.

Hopefully I was able to shed a little light on this mess. I don t see things changing at all in the near future. For senior day on Sunday, being at 1PM, my guess is most LU students will be hung over, and not show up. Those that do will show up at about 1:15, missing the chance to honor Jose, Jason, Kyle, and Adam. Next week, for the 1st round of the tourney, expect a student crowd half of what was there for Bucknell. From there, it is up to the team to try to win at an arena (most likely Bucknell) where more than a handful of students give a bleep about their team.

Do you have any thoughts?

*by the way, if you do post this on your site, do not hold me responsible for poor grammar or spelling. I should have written this on a word file and sent it to you, but I just typed it into this little box...which is tough to proof read...i didn't think I would ramble on this long, but I wanted to get a lot of things off my chest.