The Lehigh University men’s basketball team learned its NCAA Tournament fate on Sunday evening as the Mountain Hawks were awarded the No. 16 seed in the Midwest Region and will take on the No. 1 overall seed Kansas Jayhawks.  The teams will meet in Oklahoma City on Thursday at a time to be announced with the other game taking place between No. 8 UNLV and No. 9 Northern Iowa.

Senior Zahir Carrington scored 18 points, grabbed ten rebounds and blocked four shots en route to leading Lehigh to its first Patriot League championship since 2004 with a 74-59 victory over archrival Lafayette on Friday evening inside Stabler Arena in front of 4,259 fans.  The Mountain Hawks harassed the Leopards into a 3-of-23 showing from three-point range and shot 49% themselves as they win their school record 22nd game this season and advance to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in school history.  Carrington earned Tournament MVP honors, while classmate Marquis Hall and freshman C.J. McCollum were named to the All-Tournament Team.  Lafayette sees its season come to a close with an overall mark of 19-13.

C.J. McCollum was honored by the Sporting News for the second time this week on Friday when the outlet named him its Patriot League Player and Freshman of the Year. McCollum was named to the Sporting News All-Freshman Team earlier this week where he garnered a spot on the Second-Team.  McCollum was joined on the teams by some of the biggest names in college basketball, including Kentucky’s John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors of Georgia Tech, and No. 1 Kansas’ Xavier Henry.

It would be hard to write a better script than the one that will take place inside Stabler Arena on Friday evening as top-seeded Lehigh welcomes No. 3 seed and archrival Lafayette to town in the 2010 Patriot League championship.  The winner of the 213th meeting between these rivals will receive an automatic berth to the upcoming NCAA Tournament as well as bragging rights in the Lehigh Valley for the next calendar year.  Lehigh ran all over American in its semifinal game on Sunday by a score of 79-57 as freshman C.J. McCollum led four Mountain Hawks in double figures with 22 points, while Dave Buchberger knocked down four three-pointers en route to 16 tallies.  The Leopards downed Holy Cross 66-63 in a down-to-the-wire semifinal behind 17 points from Jim Mower.

On March 7, Stabler Arena started off the day as the host of the 106th EIWA Championships. Later that day, it played host to the 2010 Patriot League Men's Basketball Semifinal between Lehigh and American University. Watch the transformation from wrestling to basketball unfold in less than two minutes!