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Friday, March 02, 2007
Lehigh fans vent about blown call
Lehigh fans are understandably upset with their loss to Army. Who could blame them? Here is an unedited sampling of some of the e-mails we have received about the blown call at the end that allowed Army to advance to the semifinals of the league tournament:

This one came from someone claiming an e-mail address of wegotscrewed@lehigh.edu:
Name: Very
Address : Pissed
Address: Off
City: Lehigh
State: Fan
Zip: Wow
Comments: We got screwed...shouldn't have been that close...but Chris,
we got screwed.
Another anonymous one read like this:
Lehigh has sent video of the game to the league already. The shot was approximately .3-.5 seconds late. If they were smart they would send it to ESPN and put some pressure on the league. It comes down to being Lehigh's fault though. If they put a better product on the court, the local television wouldn't be televising a high school game over the first round of the Patriot League tourney. They should have pushed to get the station to do this game. It is funny (sad) that Lehigh has been screwed 3 times now at the end of the game; twice by not having television there. This call was truly awful. I hope you get to see how late the "basket" actually was, Chris. Long story short...LU should not have allowed this game to be close, but in the end, it should have been a LU win...refs truly blew it.
This one also identified itself as being from a Lehigh fan, but gave no name:
Here is what my people are telling me: The league ADs met this afternoon (sans Lehigh's and Army's) on a conference call to discuss the situation, presumably after Taylor had pushed for this. It was determined that Lehigh should have won the game (the shot was late), but because the refs had left the court, they couldn't take the game away from Army. Last night, after the one ref (description deleted) made the call, the three stormed off the court without a conference. The reason is because Lehigh never informed the refs that the game was indeed being broadcasted on Internet video. The refs thought it was just game film, something they couldn't look at. Had Lehigh been clear prior to the game that indeed their was a monitor they could review, things may have gone differently. My problem is the with the alacrity that the refs left the court, not allowing Taylor anytime to explain that they were actually able to review the monitor. Once they went into the locker room though, it was over. Really, these refs should be examined for missing such a blatant call. Garbage!
Mike from Bethlehem, whose e-mail address was a lehigh.edu domain, wrote:
I'm not sure I understand the "deserve to win" rhetoric. While both teams played poor in the Army/Lehigh game, that doesn't mean Lehigh didn't "deserve" the win. I could quote Herm Edwards, but you get the idea. Obviously, Lehigh would not have been happy with their collective performance had they won, but I'm sure they felt the same way in 2003 after squeaking by Navy in the 1st round.

The story coming from this game isn't about a sub 30% shooting performance; it is the bureaucracy that is the NCAA. How can this result be upheld? A jury of 1,000,000 would unanimously declare that the final shot should not have counted. However, because the three blind officials left the court the result is final?

I understand some Internet broadcast technicality, but the proof could be found on the sidelines within 5 minutes of the disputed shot. This is a disgrace. The NCAA is a joke. Imagine this happening in an ACC tournament game - simply put, Lehigh wins. I feel like shit.

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Published at 1:26 PM by Hoop Time.
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