Men's Basketball | November 28, 2016
PHILADELPHIA - The La Salle men's basketball team returns to Gola Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 30 for a matchup with Patriot League preseason favorite Lehigh at 7:00 p.m. The contest marks the beginning of a three-game, seven-day stretch for the Explorers, who will host Bucknell on Dec. 3 at Gola before facing off against defending national champion Villanova at the Palestra on Dec. 6.
NEWS & NOTES
•The Explorers are coming off an 89-78 victory over Drexel on Sunday afternoon at the Daskalakis Center.
•Senior
Cleon Roberts had a team-high 22 points and hit 6-of-7 from three-point range to lead La Salle in scoring.
•Roberts made his first six from beyond the arc to extend his personal streak to 10 straight makes over two games.
•Senior
Jordan Price also had a quality offensive performance, scoring 14 of his 20 points after intermission.
•On the game, the Explorers connected on 13 of their 21 three-point field goal attempts (61.9 percent) and shot 54.2 percent overall.
•La Salle had a season-high 21 assists in the contest against the Dragons, including seven from redshirt junior
Amar Stukes.
•Led by two-time Patriot League Player of the Year Tim Kempton, Lehigh enters with a 2-3 overall record.
•Kempton is scoring a team-high 24.4 ppg and posted 30 in a 97-89 loss at Arkansas State.
SCOUTING LEHIGH
•The Mountain Hawks were picked to win the Patriot League in a poll of the league's coaches prior to the year, and enter Wednesday's contest with a 2-3 record with wins over preseason Ivy favorite Princeton and SEC opponent Mississippi State.
•Lehigh's win over the Bulldogs was the first over a Southeastern Conference school in program history.
•Senior center Tim Kempton has been named the Patriot League Player of the Year in each of the last two seasons.
•The only other players to win the award twice heading into their senior years were C.J. McCollum (Lehigh) and Adonal Foyle (Colgate), both of whom were NBA first-round draft picks.
•Kempton, whose father was a four-year letterwinner at Notre Dame and went 3-1 against the Explorers during his career (1982-86), is averaging 24.4 points per contest this year, including a pair of 30-point performances against Yale and Arkansas State.
FROM WAY DOWNTOWN
•The Explorers used an impressive performance from beyond the three-point line to defeat Drexel on Nov. 27.
•La Salle went 7-for-11 from deep in the first half, then continued its hot shooting with a 6-for-10 performance in the second.
•The 13 three-point field goals were the most in a single game by the Explorers since hitting 13 against Saint Joseph's on Feb. 13, 2016.
•The 61.9 percent shooting was the highest percentage for the team in a game with 10 or more makes since making 10 of 16 attempts (62.5%) in a 76-64 win over Saint Joseph's on Feb. 16, 2013.
CLE FOR THREE
•Senior guard
Cleon Roberts has been on a tear from three-point range over the last three games.
•After not attempting a three-pointer in the season opener at Temple, Roberts has made at least two from deep in each of the last three contests.
•The 6-6 guard connected on a pair from long range in the win over Delaware and went a perfect 4-for-4 from three in the narrow loss to Texas Southern.
•On Sunday against Drexel, Roberts matched a career high with six three-pointers and scored 22 points in an 89-78 win.
•Roberts hit his first six three's against the Dragons, extending his streak to 10 consecutive makes. The NCAA record is 15 makes in a row, set by Todd Leslie of Northwestern in 1990.
•The Miami native also scored his 1,000th collegiate point (including Georgia Southern)with his first three-point make in the first half.
SOMEBODY CALL A DOCTOR!
•In a rarity that has likely not been seen in a long time, if ever, in college basketball, the matchup Wednesday pits a pair of head coaches who have outstanding resumes both on the floor and in the classroom.
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Dr. John Giannini, now in his 13th season as head coach at La Salle, will take on Dr. Brett Reed, who is currently in his 10th year at the helm of Lehigh.
•The two head coaches are believed to be the only two head coaches in NCAA Division I men's basketball to have obtained a doctorate.
•Giannini received his bachelor's degree from North Central College in Illinois (1984), a master's in physical education from North Texas (1986) and a Ph.D. in kinesiology from the University of Illinois in 1992.
•Reed holds degrees from Eckerd College (Fla.) and Wayne State, where he earned both his master's and Ph.D.
