City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

With two senior forwards set to graduate this year, Lehigh coach Brett Reed needed to add a few pieces to his frontcourt in the 2016 graduating class.

He certainly can feel much better about the future of his frontcourt now.

Brewster Academy (N.H.) post-grad Jack Lieb committed to the Mountain Hawks on Wednesday afternoon, becoming the second player 6-foot-8 or taller to give a verbal pledge to Reed and his staff for next year in the last two months.

After taking an official visit to the school a little more than two weeks ago--his only official visit--Lieb thought it over with his parents and his coaches and realized that he wanted to be a Mountain Hawk for the usual laundry list of reasons.

“It’s a great fit,” he said. “Coach Reed’s been with me the entire way, they’ve got a great system, I feel like I can play right away; they’ve got a good group of guys, good team, they’re definitely on the upwards trend and should be a good team moving forward, great academics, all that kind of stuff.”

A 6-10, 230-pound forward/center, Lieb elected to take a year at Brewster after missed all but five games of his senior season as well as the crucial summer recruiting periods before it with a torn ACL suffered in June 2014. Back healthy on the AAU circuit this year with the Illinois Wolves, he picked up offers from schools like Siena, Loyola (Ill.), Lafayette, Boston University and more.

The Chicago native, who graduated from Deerfield (Ill.) HS, joins Christian Brothers Academy (N.J.) forward Pat Andree and Campbell Hall (Cali.) point guard Jordan Cohen in Lehigh’s incoming freshman class for next year.

Though he doesn’t know Andree, a 6-8 stretch forward with excellent 3-point shooting abilities, Lieb said the coaches have told him the two, along with current freshman post Caleb Sedore, should help form a talented trio up front for the next few years.

“We can definitely compliment each other,” Lieb said. “I see myself as very versatile, I can post up, I can make 3s, I can put the ball on the deck and I can defend almost every position, so I think I can do a lot of things and I think no matter what coach asks me to do, I’ll do just that.”

Minutes will certainly be available next year, with starting power forward Justin Goldsborough and sixth man Jesse Chuku, both 6-8, slated to graduate and take approx. 60 minutes per game with them. And Tim Kempton, the Mountain Hawks’ 6-10 center who just won Patriot League Player of the Year as a sophomore, will be a senior when they arrive on campus.

That’s something Lieb was very much aware of when considering his college options.

“I definitely wanted to go somewhere I knew I could play,” he said. “What they’ve done with Kempton, he’s player of the year and he’s a major factor in that league, so I’ve seen how they can develop big men, and with him leaving and the other guys leaving it definitely opens up some space and I feel like I could play.”

Now fully recovered from his knee injury suffered more than a year ago, Lieb is working on adding muscle--he claims he’s put on “close to 30 pounds” of productive weight during his time off--and preparing for a year in the tough New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) and then life as a Division I basketball player.

“My shot got a lot better, and here I’m just trying to improve my post game, and everything, there’s always something to improve on,” he said. “No one’s perfect, there’s definitely a lot I can improve on, I’m not even a year back from coming back and playing so I think the sky’s the limit, every day I feel like I’m getting better.”