<p>Here come the Lehigh Mountain Hawks and several other very highly regarded academic institutions in the great American college basketball ritual known as March Madness. </p>
<p>Big, athletic places like Kansas and Syracuse are likely to get most of the press over the next few weeks, but what makes this time of year so enjoyable are the lesser athletic lights competing with the major players. America loves an underdog and there are upsets aplenty to enjoy and celebrate. </p>
<p>Patriot League champion Lehigh is a great example of the excitement that this event can generate on a colleges campus and which can add a lot of enjoyment to the undergraduate experience of many Lehigh students.</p>
<p>In addition to Lehigh, Cornell is another college highly ranked for academics that, as a result of winning the Ivy League, will be participating. Expect more top academic colleges to also join the list of participants when the tournament field is selected. </p>
<p>Good luck to Lehigh, Cornell and the other top colleges that show that you can combine top athletics with top academics and, in the process, produce a whale of a good time for students, alumni, families, maybe even the faculty!</p>
<p>Let’s not forget that Patriot League Champion and 14th seed Bucknell beat No. 3 Kansas, 64-63, in the first round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament. The following season, Bucknell became the first Patriot League team to be ranked in the AP Top 25, and defeated Arkansas in the NCAAs to move to the second round again. Holy Cross has come agonizingly close to some major upsets in the NCAA tournament as well.</p>
<p>I was at yesterday’s game since I had to pick up my daughter for spring break and she was there with the Lafayette pep band. Great atmosphere for a title game. Sort of reminded me of some of the old rivalry games at Syracuse when I was a grad student at SU pre-Carrier Dome. Too bad Lehigh was already on spring break, as the Lafayette students decidedly outnumbered the host students. SI did a nice job recapping the game. Good luck Lehigh. You guys will need it.</p>
<p>For the schools that qualified, the excitement over March Madness is sweeping their campuses. For students looking for colleges that can provide a balanced undergraduate life that combines great academics with a potentially energetic social and athletic life, these schools should be on your “college-shopping” list. Some students may not care, but lots do and, for them, this is a very, very fun time. Good luck to all of the participants and hope that your colleges do you proud.</p>
<p>Following are the colleges that rank in the USNWR Top 50 Undergraduate Colleges and which also made it into the NCAA Mens Basketball tournament. </p>
<h1>1 seed: Duke (# 8 USNWR)</h1>
<h1>3 seed: Georgetown (# 23 USNWR)</h1>
<h1>4 seed: Vanderbilt (# 17 USNWR)</h1>
<h1>4 seed: U Wisconsin (# 39 USNWR)</h1>
<h1>6 seed: Notre Dame (# 20 USNWR)</h1>
<h1>7 seed: U Richmond (# 30 USNWR LACs)</h1>
<h1>8 seed: U California Berkeley (# 21 USNWR)</h1>
<p>rogracer,
I agree!! Special recognition belongs to the 8 USNWR Top 50 colleges that placed teams into both the Men’s and Women’s NCAA tournament. Duke is far and away the most successful with a combined Men’s/Women’s Seeding of 3. </p>
<p>Here is the complete list of those colleges in both tournaments, in order of their combined seeing. </p>
<p>I thought it was interesting that 5 of the 8 are private universities as frequently the State Us are thought to have an advantage in athletics due to the larger size and often easier admissions standards. </p>
<p>None of the consensus “top publics” (UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan, U North Carolina and W&M) placed teams in both tournaments and U Virginia, U Michigan and W&M all failed to place a team in either tournament (although W&M is in the Men’s National Invitational Tournament).</p>
<p>The Patriot League is a wonderful academic league. Lehigh, Lafayette, Fordham (football only), Bucknell, Georgetown (football only), Colgate. </p>
<p>There was a time when Fordham was among the elite basketball programs in the nation, and everyone remembers the 7 blocks of granite in football including Fordham great Vince Lombardi. Fordham has been Patriot League champs a few times in football very recently. (Basketball they play the A10 and are in the midst of a complete house cleaning and a national search is on for its next coach…and rumored to be ex Fordham great player/alumn, Mike Rice, and current star coach at NCAA invite Robert Morris University, in Pittsburgh). </p>
<p>Congrats to Lehigh University. I have great admiration for every Patriot League school. They are truly little Ivy League schools that deserve a very serious look from every college applicant.</p>
<p>ghostbuster–you left out Holy Cross, a full and founding member of the Patriot League and multiple winner of the PL’s basketball champsionship and the reigning football champion of the PL.</p>
<p>I thought the Lehigh University mascot/nickname was ‘the Engineers.’ And I’m old enough to remember when Lehigh outscored a top ranked Georgetown U in a first-round game. Unfortunately Georgetown had built such a large lead in the first half, the “second-half rally” did amount to much for Lehigh. I think they still lost by at least 30.</p>
<p>I’m with Lake WA, although I knew Lehigh had changed the name some time ago, I still like the “Engineers.” What the heck is a “mountain hawk” ?(I grew up in the Lehigh Valley and I realize the hawk and South Mountain reference but really…) Anyway, good luck to Lehigh from an old Orangeman.</p>
<p>KY Crusader…I did indeed. DOH! My sincere apologies. No harm intended. Holy Cross is a fabulous school with a proud history academically and athletically. </p>
<p>The Mountain Hawks couldn’t keep up and are now out, but Cornell won today. Go Big Red! I’ll bet that there will be some happy folks tonight in Ithaca. Enjoy the dancin’. :)</p>