March 18, 2010

Oklahoma City, Okla. - Patriot League champion and No. 16 seed Lehigh led No. 1 overall seed Kansas in the early minutes and stayed within reaching distance of the Jayhawks for nearly the entire game before falling, 90-74, in a first-round game in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship on Thursday at the Ford Center.

Lehigh's season comes to an end with a 22-11 record. The Mountain Hawks won the regular-season and Tournament titles in the Patriot League, and set a school record for victories.

The Mountain Hawks jumped out of the gates with a 12-4 lead. Zahir Carrington punctuated the run with a jumper with 14:04 left that forced a Kansas timeout.

The Jayhawks stormed back after that point, putting together a 21-2 surge to take a double-digit advantage at 25-14 with 6:23 to play in the first half.

Lehigh fought right back with a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to 25-23, and still trailed by just two until Kansas scored the last four points of the first half to take a 35-29 lead at the break.

Kansas could not put Lehigh away early in the second half, as the Mountain Hawks answered each run with buckets of their own. Kansas opened up a 43-32 lead early in the half, but the Mountain Hawks notched a 7-2 run to get back within six. After Kansas scored five straight points, Marquis Hall hit a three-pointer and Gabe Knutson layed one in to get Lehigh to a 50-44 deficit with just over 13 minutes to play.

Kansas scored the next six points to take it biggest lead of the game at 56-44 with 11:59 left. Lehigh got back within nine and it was still a 10-point game with under 10 minutes to play, but Kansas put together a 9-2 run to take control and Lehigh never got closer than 13 in the final nine minutes.

"The game tonight was going to require an absolutely champion effort in order to dethrone Kansas. I'm proud of the hustle and determination, and I'm proud of our fight," said Lehigh Head Coach Brett Reed. "Unfortunately, we came through on the wrong side and didn't quite have enough, didn't have enough miracle plays in order to pull off a tremendous upset, but nonetheless we will not hang our heads. We will move forward with pride. I felt we represented Lehigh University and the Patriot League with a great deal of class."

C.J. McCollum led the Mountain Hawks with 26 points, and also pulled down a team-high seven rebounds. Carrington had 17 points and six reboounds, while Hall had 10 points and five assists and Dave Buchberger scored nine as all three seniors played their final collegiate game. Knuston tallied eight points as Lehigh's starters accouunted for 70 of the team's 74 points.

"I'd like to give credit to our seniors who made a terrific run throughout the entire course of the season," Reed said. "They did a wonderful job of representing our program, doing so with class, molding and forming a team into a family and then obviously with a number of other student-athletes within our program that represented us with class as well as with character, and gave us a wonderful year and certainly one to be proud of."

Lehigh connected on 40.8 percent of its shots, and 7-of-19 from three-point range. The Mountain Hawks hit 6-of-10 three-pointers in the second half after making just 1-of-9 in the first half. Lehigh made 17-of-21 foul shots, including 13-of-14 in the second half. The Mountain Hawks were outrebounded, 40-33, and committed one fewer turnover than the Jayhawks (14-13).

Marcus Morris led five Jayhawks in double figures with 26 points, while Sherron Collins had 18. Kansas made 24-of-37 shots in the second half and 38-of-69 for the game. Kansas improves to 33-2 with the win, and advances to play No. 9 seed Northern Iowa on Saturday at 5:40 p.m. (Eastern). Northern Iowa defeated No. 8 UNLV, 69-66, in the first game of the evening session on Thursday.