Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
2-5
Northern Iowa
6-1
Bison Cagers Drop 57-48 Decision to Northern Iowa, Face George Mason Sunday
12/2/2006 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 2, 2006
LEWISBURG, Pa. - Brooks McKowen scored 15 of his game-high 17 points in the second half, nine coming on three big 3-pointers down the stretch, to lead Northern Iowa to a 57-48 victory over Bucknell on Saturday afternoon at Sojka Pavilion. Abe Badmus scored 11 points and Chris McNaughton had 10 points and nine rebounds for the Bison, who fell to 2-5 and now must turn around and face reigning Final Four participant George Mason in less than 24 hours at the BB&T Classic in Washington, D.C.
Eric Coleman made all six of his field goals in the first half and had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Grant Stout added 13 points for the Panthers, who won their fourth in a row to improve to 6-1.
Northern Iowa led 28-24 after a tight first half that saw eight lead changes and four ties. Bucknell played excellent half-court defense in the second half, holding Northern Iowa to only seven field goals in 21 attempts. But four of those were critical 3-pointers, two coming as the shot clock expired and two others coming after long offensive rebounds on missed threes at the end of the shot clock.
Northern Iowa scored six straight points early in the second half, three coming on a killer 3-pointer by Stout off a sideline out-of-bounds play with only two seconds on the shot clock. The run gave the Panthers a seven-point lead at 36-29, but the Bison, who came from 15 down to defeat Saint Francis (Pa.) in their last outing on Wednesday, rallied once again. Two McNaughton buckets bookended an 11-3 run that briefly put them back in front.
Trailing 39-35, Rob Thomas came off the bench to hit a 3-pointer, then John Griffin executed a perfect pick-and-roll with McNaughton for a layup that gave Bucknell a 40-39 lead with 8:40 to play.
Northern Iowa had gone more than six minutes without a field goal at that point, and Bucknell turned in another strong defensive stand after taking the lead. The Bison forced the Panthers into a long contested 3-pointer at the end of the shot clock, but the rebound ricocheted all the way out to Travis Brown on the perimeter, and two passes later McKowen hit a 3-pointer to put UNI back in front 42-40 with 7:56 left.
Darren Mastropaolo tied it with a layup on Bucknell's next possession, but it was another long offensive rebound less than two minutes later that gave the Panthers the lead for good. Jared Josten missed a 3-pointer just before the shot clock expired, but Coleman grabbed the rebound. Later on that possession, McKowen hit his second 3-pointer to make it 45-42.
At the 4:35 mark Badmus was called for a loose ball foul in a scramble in the paint, and it turned into a four-point possession for UNI. McKowen hit two free throws when the Bison were whistled for a technical foul, then Josten hit both ends of the one-and-one for a 49-42 lead.
The Bison recovered with four straight points on two Griffin free throws and a short baseline jumper from McNaughton with 3:23 left. Again Bucknell appeared to be on the verge of a defensive stop, but McKowen buried a 3-pointer from the left corner as the shot-clock buzzer sounded, giving UNI a 52-46 led with 2:43 left.
Mastropaolo missed a baseline jumper at the other end, and after two Jason Vegotsky free throws that made it 52-48 with 55 seconds left, the Panthers made 5 of 6 from the stripe in the final 48 seconds while Bucknell could not get a 3-pointer to drop.
Neither team led by more than four points in the first half, when the lead repeatedly switched hands. Justin Castleberry's 3-pointer with 3:44 left in the half gave the Bison a 22-21 lead. UNI answered with five straight points on McKowen's lone field goal of the half and a 3-pointer by Stout, the only first-half trey in seven attempts for the panthers.
Donald Brown took a Badmus feed for a dunk with 1:26 left, but Stout's layup put the Panthers ahead 28-24 at the half. Coleman was 6-for-7 from the field in the first half and scored 12 points, but he never made another field goal after his layup at the 6:49 mark of the first period.
Bucknell shot 40.4 percent on the day but made only 4 of 17 from 3-point range. Northern Iowa shot 44.4 percent while outrebounding the Bison 29-26.
The game was a rematch of last year's BracketBusters thriller, won by Northern Iowa in double overtime in Cedar Falls.
The Bucknell-George Mason game is scheduled for a 1:30 p.m. tipoff on Sunday at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. The game will be televised on Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic.
