Cornell Big Red at Lehigh Mountain Hawks

On Thursday, November 5, 2026, the Lehigh Mountain Hawks picked up a 71-64 home victory over the Cornell Big Red. Backing Lehigh at the tracked number of +1.5 resulted in a clean win, as the Mountain Hawks bypassed the points entirely to take the contest by seven.

Our statistical model leaned toward Lehigh covering, projecting a tight 78-77 finish in favor of the hosts. Despite assigning a low confidence rating due to limited early-season data, the model correctly identified that the market was slightly undervaluing Lehigh's home-court advantage in this matchup.

Where the projection missed was on the overall pace and offensive efficiency. The model anticipated a high-scoring affair totaling 155 points, but the game settled at just 135. Cornell's offense was held well below its projected 77 points, showing that early-season baseline figures can overestimate tempo before teams fully settle into rhythm. Even with the scoring discrepancy, the side projection held up well.

Cornell visits Lehigh on Thursday night in an early-season non-conference matchup with the game total set at 159.5. Our statistical model anticipates a tightly contested, fast-paced game, projecting a 78–77 victory for the Mountain Hawks on their home floor.

We took Lehigh at +1.5 when tracking opened. With the model forecasting an outright one-point win for Lehigh, that +1.5 cushion provides a 1.26-point edge in favor of the home side covering the number. The market has since shifted Lehigh to a -1.5 favorite, but our analysis remains anchored to the +1.5 spread we logged at publication.

Our model assigns a low rating to this projection. Because it is early in the season, sample sizes for both rosters are thin, requiring the model to rely more heavily on multi-year league baselines than in-season performance data. The projection points toward Lehigh covering +1.5, though early-November basketball naturally carries a wide range of statistical variance.