James Hett and the Monmouth Hawks Beat Lehigh University, 69 – 68

What an exciting game at the MAC Center in West Long Branch, New Jersey tonight! The Monmouth University Hawks went head-to-head against the Lehigh University Mountain Hawks in a game that ended with a final score of 69 – 68 in the Hawks’ favor. This game was literally won in the final second on a foul shot by Senior James Hett (see the side picture to the left below and the larger version in the last row of pictures below). Of course, anyone that attended this game is not only going to remember the excitement in the final few seconds, but they’re going to remember the vomit, too.

James Hett Winning the Game

Twice during the game Monmouth’s Ed Waite threw up on the floor. In fact, the first time he yacked it appeared that he splashed the basketball a little bit. While I didn’t see the first upchuck, I definitely saw both shots of his second oral expulsion and it was gross. The best part of the vomiting fiasco was that after Waite threw up for the first time and the officials called for an official timeout, Head Coach Dave Calloway was overheard immediately asking the referee if it was still the team’s ball. Hilarious! That’s a man who keeps his eye on the prize, eh?

Bear with me, I’m trying to get all of the possible ways to say “vomit” out in this one entry. Unfortunately, I’m not as professional about discussing Waite emptying his stomach as someone like Tony Graham at the Asbury Park Press, who eloquently wrote, “sophomore forward Ed Waite took sick on the floor.” Graham is good; I’m just trying to find new ways to say vomit. 🙂

Aside from the vomit, it appeared that the Hawks were outmatched for a good portion of the game. However, through a few good stretches of play, they were able to position themselves well enough to win the game. What struck me was how the gigantic center from England, Phil Wait, played during the game. It just seemed to me like there was something off in his game tonight. And I’m not sure, but I also got the distinct feeling that by the second half of the game Wait’s teammates were trying to find ways to play around him.

Now, by no means am I an expert on basketball so take this next statement for what it is, which is a fan making an observation. However, I’m boggled about Wait’s actions on the floor. It seems to me that if you’re 7′ 2″ that you should be under the basket at all times. You should be the lead the team in rebounds and, frankly, you should probably be among the top scorers since you’d likely be putting the ball directly in the basket with each rebound. It doesn’t appear that Wait does any of that too often. In fact, if you look at the box score for tonight’s game, Wait had less rebounds than any of the other starting five.

And it’s not like he wasn’t near the bottom of the basket, rather he was just too far away from the basket to make a difference. There were routinely two or even three guys between him and the hoop when he was going up for rebounds. He also seems to be a very lateral player in that he likes to reach forward when the other team takes a shot. Shouldn’t a guy that tall be putting those massive arms up in the air and jumping to block the shot?

Whatever, I’m just a fan watching a game making an observation.

I hope you enjoy some of the 40+ pictures below. This game was a lot of fun to attend and even though I can’t find an official number on the attendance tonight, I would assume that all of the folks who were there would agree that it was a fun game to watch.