Lehigh Basketball’s 76-69 Win Has Them On The Brink Of The NCAA Tournament For The First Time Since Duke

BETHLEHEM, PA – Most Lehigh fans attending Sunday afternoon’s Patriot League Tournament semifinal had hoped that their game against Colgate wouldn’t be a nailbiter.

But the 2025-2026 Mountain Hawks have been living on the razor’s edge all season – and somehow coming out on top much of the time.

In two prior games against Colgate – both Lehigh wins – the Mountain Hawks didn’t have a lead with 10 seconds to play. A late layup won the first game in Hamilton, and a late jumper in overtime gave the game to the Mountain Hawks in the second meeting in Bethlehem.

In Lehigh’s last game, too, in the Patriot League Quarterfinals, it took – of all things – a 30 foot heave as time was expiring to break a 66-66 tie against Holy Cross and advance to Sunday afternoon’s game.

For the Mountain Hawks on Sunday, it once again came down to the final minute, but Lehigh (17-16) ended up scoring the last four clinching points in a 76-69 win that sent them to the Patriot League Finals.

Hammering Hank

F Hank Alvey‘s 30 points was a career high for the 6’9 sophomore from Mapleton, IL, but he didn’t start out red hot.

“Despite Hank missing his first shot,” head coach Brett Reed told me after the game, “he stayed confident and stayed assertive.  And then, our team showed incredible poise and IQ to continue to get him the basketball.”

With Colgate understandably wanting to make sure the hero against Holy Cross wouldn’t beat them, G Nasir Whitlock effortlessly switched from offense to playmaker a good part of the game, feeding Alvey often as he would more often than not crash the boards, score a basket, or draw a foul. It was a cudgel that Lehigh used to devastating effect through the course of the game.

“Hank is one of my best friends on the team,” Nasir told me after the game. “I just tell him before the game, go dominate. If they don’t end up playing as a double team, I told him, hey, go score every time. My job was easy. I was just giving him the ball. He was scoring every time.”

Just like after the Holy Cross victory, coach Reed had plenty of great things to say about Nasir.

“The beautiful thing about Nasir is he’s got an incredible ability to score the basketball,” Reed said. “And, because of that, opponents have to figure out how they’re going to try to stop him.  And, the more they put their focus on him, the more it creates opportunities for other people. For him to have a double-double with 10 assists today and reduce turnovers just shows you the type of complete player that he is.  But, more importantly, it also shows you that he puts a value on winning and puts a priority ( on winning because the winning plays were the ones that he made instead of just trying to force shots.”

Alvey felt like he was in tune with everything.

“It was more so instinct,” he said afterwards. “We knew coming into it, it was going to be tough. We didn’t know how we’d end up scoring. We knew we had scorers on this team. It took a bit, but I established the presence and then from there on out, we just knew we could keep doing it if it’s working.  And so that’s what we did, along with Nasir’s outside game. It was a good one-two punch.”

Colgate jumped to a 9-6 lead and led by as much as eight, but a Alvey hook shot and an emphatic triple from G Andrew Urosevic got the crowd involved and gave Lehigh their first lead with 6:16 to play in the first half.

Riding the wave of the loud 1,683 in attendance, Lehigh’s momentum was strong despite the superhuman efforts of Colgate G Jalen Cox, who would score 26 points and go 9 for 10 in free throws to make sure the Raiders were never totally out of it. While they would tie the game several times, Lehigh pulled away in the final minute behind 2 free throws and a layup by Whitlock to push the Mountain Hawks to the Patriot League Championship Game.

A Battle Underneath

The game saw a lot of action in the paint, where both teams scored 38 points apiece, and the Mountain Hawks held a slight lead in rebounding, 33-31, pushing Lehigh’s record to a perfect 11-0 when they outrebound their opponent. F Edoard Benoit led the team with 9 boards followed by G Josh Ingram‘s 6 and Alvey’s 5. Hank also added 3 blocks,

Home field advantage played a part in the win. In Lehigh’s surge to take the lead in the first half, the team seemed to ride the wave of the crowd to take the lead and a 7 point lead, and the rest of the game Colgate seemed to be playing catch up.

“It was awesome,” Alvey said of the crowd. “This is probably the most people that have been in favor since I’ve been here. It was incredible having that community behind you. You just feel even more powerful coming into these games and throughout the course of the game. They feed into us and we feed into them. So, having that, that relationship is huge, especially in these big games.”

“Being at home, feeding off that energy, it gives you at least 5 to 10 points,” Whitlock said. “So, when fans show up, it definitely helps you.”

As it turned out, Stabler Arena will host one more men’s basketball game this season.

With Boston University’s miracle 3 pointer against Navt, the Terriers will travel to Bethelhem this Wednesday face off at 7:00 PM at Stabler for the Patriot League Championship game.

“We’ll hit the reset button once again and be ready to go back at it for 40 minutes,” Coach Reed said.

Full Box Score

Colgate	30	39	69
Lehigh	33	43	76

Attendance: 1,683

Leading Scorers: Colgate: Jalen Cox (26), Lehigh: Hank Alvey (30)
Leading Rebounders: Colgate: Andrew Alekseyenko (7), Lehigh: Edoard Benoit (9)
Leading Assists: Coglate: Jalen Cox (5), Lehigh: Nasir Whitlock (10)