Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
3-4
La Salle
3-3
Griffin's Free Throws Lift Bucknell to 67-66 Comeback Win over La Salle
12/3/2007 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 3, 2007
LEWISBURG, Pa. - John Griffin capped a 21-point night by hitting the two game-winning free throws with eight seconds left, lifting Bucknell to a come-from-behind 67-66 victory over La Salle on Monday night at Sojka Pavilion. Justin Castleberry and Patrick Behan both set career highs with 18 points for the Bison, who trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half and by nine with five minutes to play before finishing the game on a 12-2 run.
La Salle put on a long-range display, connecting on a Sojka Pavilion-record 14 3-pointers in 29 attempts. Darnell Harris hit seven of those 3-pointers and scored a game-high 25 points, but the Explorers (3-3) made only 7 of 29 shots inside the arc. Ruben Guillandeax scored 11 points off the bench in his season debut for La Salle, but his runner in the lane rimmed out as time expired.
It was a much-needed victory for the Bison, who snapped a four-game losing streak and now head into a 13-day break for final exams with a 3-4 record. The win came on short rest, just 48 hours after a tough 57-54 loss to Saint Francis (Pa.) in which they nearly completed a comeback from 16 down only to fall short when Griffin's 3-pointer went in and out in the final seconds.
This time, Griffin played the role of hero by knocking down both ends of a 1-and-1 after being fouled by Harris 75 feet from the basket.
La Salle hit seven 3-pointers in a 27-8 run that gave it a 39-23 lead with 1:35 left in the first half. Bucknell made some headway before going to the locker room, pulling within 39-27 on layups from Behan and Castleberry.
Those late buckets proved big when Bucknell scored the first six points of the second half, pulling within 39-33 on Behan's blind tip-in of Griffin's missed jumper. The second half was marked by a series of runs for both sides, however, and Guillandeaux and Harris canned back-to-back threes to cap an 8-0 La Salle run to push the Explorers' lead back to 14 at 47-33 with 13:40 to play.
Still struggling from the outside, Bucknell found success aggressively attacking the basket. Three times in the next two minutes Castleberry drove hard to the glass. Once he drew a foul and made both free throws, another time he tossed in a four-footer and the third time he spun one in off the glass and drew a foul. Behan also had a put-back in what would be an 8-0 Bison run, drawing them within 47-41 with 10:45 to play.
Paul Johnson's lauyp off an inbounds play got the Explorers back to double digits at 51-41, and it was still a 10-point game inside nine minutes to play when Bucknell's inside scoring begin to open things up on the perimeter. Griffin hit two long jumpers, one a 3-pointer and the second coming with a toe on the arc. Darryl Shazier finished a coast-to-coast drive to make it 54-50 with 7:30 left, but Sherman Diaz answered with a 3-pointer for La Salle.
Diaz hit another trey about 90 seconds later to give La Salle a nine-point cushion at 64-55 with 5:21 left. The Bison were hardly finished, however. After a timeout, Stephen Tyree crashed the glass for a tip-in with 4:45 left to get Bucknell's rally started.
After Harris missed a jumper, La Salle lost Griffin in transition, and Castleberry fed him on the left wing for a 3-pointer. Harris missed another long 3-pointer, then Casteberry hit a catch-and-release 22-footer from the right side to make it a one-point game at 64-63 with 3:18 left.
Yves Mekongo Mbala was fouled in the low post and hit two free throws with 2:15 left to restore La Salle's three-point margin, but the Explorers would not score again.
Bucknell turned the ball over on its next possession, but Todd O'Brien altered Harris' layup try at the other end and Behan rebounded. Griffin got caught in the paint and was off the mark with his shot in traffic, but O'Brien snatched the offensive rebound and stuck it back in to make it 66-65 with 43 seconds left.
Trailing by one with about a seven-second differential between the game clock and shot clock, Bucknell elected not to foul, and the strategy worked when Harris missed his fifth straight shot. Tyree rebounded and handed the ball off to Griffin, who was surprisingly fouled by Harris before the Bison could call time out and set up a final play.
After being delayed by a series of La Salle substitutions, Griffin calmly swished both ends of the 1-and-1 to give the Bison their first lead since 15-12. Griffin denied Harris possession on the inbounds, and Guillandeaux drove the length of the floor, but Tyree contested his runner from the left side of the lane and Castleberry rebounded with two seconds left and ran out the clock.
Griffin, Behan and Castleberry accounted for 57 of Bucknell's 67 points and 21 of its 26 field goals. Behan made 9 of 11 shots from the field and also grabbed a career-high eight rebounds. Griffin hit 3 of 6 from 3-point range and also had three assists without a turnover and blocked two shots in the second half. Castleberry shook a recent shooting slump by making 6 of 10 from the floor and he added five rebounds. O'Brien, this week's Patriot League Rookie of the Week, was held to four points, but he did have six rebounds and three blocked shots, giving him multiple blocks in all seven games this season. As a team, the Bison blocked a season-high eight shots.
The Bison shot 53.1 percent from the field and 38.5 percent (5-13) from 3-point range. La Salle finished at 36.2 percent from the floor, despite making 48.3 percent from the arc. Coming into the game, Bucknell was No. 1 in the Patriot League in 3-point defense at 26.5 percent. The Explorers held a 34-31 rebounding edge, with 15 of their caroms coming at the offensive end.
This was the first meeting between Bucknell and La Salle since the 1982-83 season, and its was Bucknell's first victory over La Salle since coach Pat Flannery's senior year in 1979-80.
Bucknell is now idle until Dec. 16 when it travels to Wake Forest for a 2 p.m. contest at Joel Coliseum.
