Lehigh rolls without star

[Harry]

The highly anticipated showdown between a pair of potential NBA lottery picks in North Texas forward Tony Mitchell and Lehigh guard C.J. McCollum never materialized Thursday.

Lehigh was expected to roll out the nation’s leading scorer and the hero of its win over Duke in last season’s NCAA tournament in front of 59 NBA team executives and a crowd of 4,955 at the Super Pit.

McCollum was nowhere to be found when tip time came.

That made the way Lehigh rolled to a 90-75 win even tougher for the Mean Green to take.

Lehigh held McCollum out because of a sprained ankle he suffered in practice this week — a decision the coaching staff didn’t make until game time, leaving the Mountain Hawks shorthanded.

Lehigh (9-2) rolled anyway on a night the Mean Green (5-7) saw another chance to earn a signature win, not to mention one that could turn its season around, slip through its hands.

“It’s definitely hard,” UNT guard Alzee Williams said. “We were all pumped up about this game. We thought we were going to win.”

UNT had all the more reason to believe that would be the case with McCollum out. The 6-3 senior guard came into the week leading the nation in scoring with an average of 24.9 points a game.

McCollum was a big reason Lehigh came into the night having scored at least 80 points in four of its last five games.

The Mountain Hawks made it five of six behind Gabe Knutson, who scored a game-high 28 points.

Read more: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/colleges/north-texas-headlines/20121221-mens-basketball-lehigh-rolls-without-star.ece