Once Ignored, Lehigh's C. J. McCollum Gains Attention GREENSBORO, N.C. - The scouts did not notice, the phone did not ring all that often and the scholarship offers did not pour in for C. J. McCollum when he was a 5-foot-6 high school guard in Ohio hoping to play college basketball. "Recruiting is a crap shoot," said Xavier Coach Chris Mack, who did not recruit McCollum, the Ohio player of the year in 2009, but will now have to come up with a plan to stop him. Mack and the rest could not have predicted the player McCollum would become at Lehigh, where he is a two-time Patriot League player of the year and the nation's fifth-leading scorer as a junior this season. And even if they had, few would have imagined what McCollum and the Mountain Hawks would do to No. 2 Duke on Friday in an N.C.A.A. tournament South Region game. Lehigh, which had never won a tournament game, became only the sixth No. 15 seed to knock off a No. 2 in N.C.A.A. history when it stunned Duke, 75-70, to advance to a meeting with 10th-seeded Xavier (22-12) on Sunday. This was a Duke program that has produced four national titles, with a coach who has more total victories and tournament wins than any other in Division I history. Duke was also playing down the road from its Durham campus in an arena where it had never lost in the N.C.A.A. tournament. And yet suddenly Lehigh (27-7), a university whose teams used to be called the Engineers before switching to the sportier Mountain Hawks, is being called this year's Cinderella. "If we have to compare, I would say maybe similar to Davidson a little bit in terms of being a small school having a solid team, solid coaching staff and trying to make a run in the tournament," McCollum said Saturday. In 2008, Davidson was the 10th seed when it beat No. 2 Georgetown in the second round. A small liberal arts college near Charlotte, N.C., known for its academics, Davidson came within one game and one missed buzzer shot of toppling Kansas and advancing to the Final Four that year. Kansas went on to win the national championship. Davidson was led by a skinny guard named Stephen Curry, who scored 30 points against Georgetown in a coming-out performance that catapulted him to stardom. He is now a guard for the Golden State Warriors. McCollum had 30 points, too, against Duke. Not that he sees himself as another Curry. "I don't know how good I am compared to him," said McCollum, whose older brother Errick McCollum III plays pro ball in Israel. I know he's in the N.B.A. He's a star. Curry was another smallish guard who was overlooked by big-time programs when he was in high school and had to work to put himself on the national stage. Just like McCollum. "I was 5-6, a little chubby, spot-up 3-point shooter," said McCollum, who saw himself as a shooting guard in a point-guard frame. So I couldn't blame the schools for not recruiting me. But then my junior year, I was 5-11, hit a little growth spurt. It was a little frustrating not getting recruited, but things happen for a reason and I'm in a good situation now. Lehigh's Brett Reed was one of the few coaches to recruit McCollum out of GlenOak High in Canton, Ohio. He saw more than a lack of height. "I saw talent," Reed said. I saw a feel for the game, a basketball I.Q., and just a smoothness about him that I really valued. Now, physically he was a little bit underdeveloped and also undersized. Because of that, his package wasn't necessarily what you would really want to have at the Division I level. But getting to know him, seeing his desire, and also getting the great feel for his game and all the different things that he could do, I thought it was more important to really search that talent and that character than it was the package that surrounded it. McCollum has been a three-year starter. And Reed did not have to worry about his size. Another growth spurt has McCollum at 6-3. He has the size and the game to trouble any team Lehigh faces in the tournament. "I don't know if there's anything that you can do to stop him," said Mack, whose team will try to keep McCollum from driving the lane, where he was most dangerous against Duke. But no matter what happens Sunday, the Mountain Hawks and McCollum have already earned their moment on the national stage. And most important these days, @3JMcCollum was at just over 3,000 Twitter followers and counting. That was double what it was before the Duke game. Of course, that is far below the 134,000 followers that the heavily recruited Duke freshman guard Austin Rivers can boast after a year in the national spotlight. But McCollum has something to boast about too: he's still in the N.C.A.A. tournament.