Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Men's Basketball Visits George Mason Wednesday Night, Game Televised on MASN
11/29/2011 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 29, 2011
WHAT: Bucknell (5-2) at George Mason (4-2)
WHERE: Patriot Center, Fairfax, Va.
WHEN: Wednesday, Nov. 30, 7 p.m. ET
TELEVISON: MASN 
RADIO: Eagle 107 (WEGH 107.3 FM) and SportsJuice.com
LIVE STATS: gomason.com
Complete Game Notes in PDF Format 
With a Win over George Mason, Bucknell Would ...
• ... win its sixth straight game and improve to 6-2 on the season.
• ... improve to 2-2 on the road.
• ... improve to 3-1 against teams that played in the 2011 NCAA Tournament.
• ... improve to 4-6 all-time against the Patriots.
•... win at the Patriot Center for the first time since 1992-93.
Headlines
• Fresh off a three-game sweep of the Lewisburg Subregional of the TicketCity Legends Classic over the weekend, Bucknell looks to extend its winning streak to six in a row when it travels to George Mason on Wednesday night.
• After opening up the season with road losses at Minnesota and No. 18 Vanderbilt, the Bison have come back with five wins in a row. Four of those came just last week, as Bucknell picked up its first road win of the year at Marist on Nov. 22, followed by a sweep of Princeton, West Alabama and Morehead State at the TicketCity Legends Classic.
• Bucknell got hot from 3-point range in its last two games. The Bison canned a school-record 17 treys in the 87-50 rout of West Alabama, and then they hit 10 more against Morehead State a day later. Of those 27 treys, Bryson Johnson accounted for 15 of them, a new school record for 3-pointers in consecutive games.
• Cameron Ayers is coming off an MVP performance at the Legends Classic. He hit a season-high 20 points against West Alabama, then had 15 against Morehead State, including the tiebreaking 3-pointer with 1:47 to play.
• The Bison were unanimously picked as the preseason favorite in the Patriot League by the league's head coaches and SIDs.
• Bucknell returned four starters and 10 lettermen from last year's Patriot League championship squad.
• George Mason returned two starters from a team that finished 27-7 overall and 16-2 in the Colonial Athletic Association last season. The Patriots defeated Villanova in the second round of the NCAA Tournament before falling to Ohio State in the Round of 32.
• While Bucknell just played three days in a row over the weekend, George Mason will have had eight days rest since blasting Albany 66-46 on Nov. 22. The 4-2 Patriots also have one-sided wins over Brown (74-48) and Monmouth (71-39) as well as a 92-90 overtime victory over Rhode Island. George Mason's two losses both came in overtime, to Florida International (79-76) and Florida Atlantic (80-75).
• First-year head coach Paul Hewitt's team is led by senior forward Ryan Pearson, who is averaging 21.3 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.
How to Get the Game
• The Bucknell-George Mason game will be televised live on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN). Jason Knapp and former Georgetown coach Craig Esherick will have the call. MASN is available on most cable systems in the Mid-Atlantic region, as well as on DirectTV (640) and Dish Network (432).
• The game can be heard in the Susquehanna Valley on the radio on Eagle 107 (WEGH 107.3 FM), with Doug Birdsong and Terry Conrad describing the action. The pregame show begins 30 minutes before tip-off.
• The audio feed is available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com and SportsJuice.com.
• Live statistics are available at gomason.com.
Bucknell vs. George Mason
• The Bison are 3-6 all-time against George Mason in a series that dates back to the 1984-85 season.
• The last Bison-Patriots matchup came on Dec. 3, 2006 as part of the BB&T Classic at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Bucknell won that one 60-57 behind 16 points and nine rebounds from Donald Brown. That victory was Bucknell's first over a team that played in the Final Four the previous season since Feb. 5, 1959. That year the Bison defeated Temple 79-72 after the Owls had advanced to the 1958 national semifinals.
• Bucknell is 1-3 against George Mason at the Patriot Center, with the lone win coming in 1992-93 (73-60).
Bucknell vs. The CAA
• Bucknell is 107-77 (.582) against current members of the Colonial Athletic Association, with most of those games coming against former East Coast Conference rivals Delaware (52-34), Hofstra (19-10), Towson (17-8) and Drexel (15-15). The Bison are also 3-6 against George Mason, 1-2 against Old Dominion and 0-2 vs. James Madison.
• The Bison last played a team from the CAA on Nov. 24, 2010, an 85-75 loss at James Madison. Bucknell is 3-2 against the CAA over the last three-plus seasons, with the wins coming against Delaware, Old Dominion and Drexel.
Recapping Last Weekend
• For the first time in program history, Bucknell hosted an in-season tournament, as a subregional of the TicketCity Legends Classic came to Sojka Pavilion. The weekend was a success, as the Bison turned back Princeton (62-56), West Alabama (87-50) and Morehead State (54-50). A few notes on each:
• BUCKNELL 62, PRINCETON 56: Bucknell led by just one point at the half before pulling away down the stretch behind Mike Muscala and Steven Kaspar ... Muscala finished with 25 points and 12 rebounds, going 8-for-10 from both the floor and foul line ... Kaspar, the freshman point guard, scored eight big second half points ... with Muscala scoring inside and Kaspar hurting Princeton with dribble penetration, the Bison only attempted six 3-pointers, making two.
• BUCKNELL 87, WEST ALABAMA 50: Bucknell reversed tactics a day later, making a school-record 17 3-pointers in a rout of West Alabama ... Bryson Johnson hit nine of those 3-pointers, a new Sojka Pavilion record, and scored 27 points ... Cameron Ayers made 7 of 10 from the floor and 4 of 5 from the arc en route to a career-high 20 points ... Ben Brackney hit the other four treys and scored a career-high 10 points ... Bucknell held the Tigers to 27.4% shooting.
• BUCKNELL 54, MOREHEAD STATE 50: This time Bucknell got it done with defense and more timely shooting ... the Bison overcame a 10-point second-half deficit, holding the Eagles to 8-for-28 (.286) shooting in the second half ... Johnson hit six more threes and led the Bison with 20 points, while Ayers scored 11 of his 15 in the second half ... Ayers hit the tying and go-ahead 3-pointers late in the game, and then he iced it with two critical free throws in the final seconds ... Morehead State had been hurting teams all season with its offensive rebounding, but the Bison held the Eagles to four offensive boards and just two second-chance points.
Stats Worth Noting
• Bucknell has been dominant on the glass of late. After going -15 in rebound margin against Minnesota and Vanderbilt to start the season, the Bison are +58 since then.
• The Bison had only been averaging 4.0 made 3-pointers in 11.4 attempts per game through five games, but in their last two outings they made West Alabama and Morehead State pay for their zone defenses, going 27-for-56 (.482) from the arc.
• Bucknell ranked third in the nation in free-throw shooting last season at 78.8%, but this year the Bison are shooting just 71.1% as a team. In a positive development, Bucknell hit its last 11 in a row in crunch time in Sunday's win over Morehead State.
• Bucknell has four players scoring in double digits: Mike Muscala (13.7), Bryson Johnson (12.1), Cameron Ayers (11.1) and Joe Willman (10.4). The No. 5 scorer, Bryan Cohen, is averaging 6.6 ppg but has a 15- and a 14-point game this season.
• Bucknell's co-leaders in minutes played — guards Ayers and Johnson — also have the lowest turnover totals among the starters. Ayers and Johnson have both played 213 minutes in the backcourt, and they have turned the ball over just five times each in seven games.
• Bucknell has gotten a big lift off the bench so far from newcomers Brian Fitzpatrick and Steven Kaspar. Fitzpatrick, a junior forward in his first eligible season after transferring from Penn, is 10-for-15 from the floor and is averaging 4.0 points and 2.6 rebounds in 9.9 minutes per game. Kaspar, a freshman point guard, has not scored much yet, but he leads the team in steals (9) and ranks No. 2 in assists (20).
• Kaspar's seven assists against West Alabama were the most by a Bison freshman since Abe Badmus had eight against Navy in 2003-04.
Streaking
• Bucknell's five-game winning streak is its longest in the months of November or December since the 2005-06 team started the season 5-0.
• The only longer November/December winning streaks in program history are a six-game streak in 1983-84 and a seven-gamer in 1956-57.
• Bucknell has also extended its home-court winning streak to 17 games dating back to last season. It is the third-longest home winning streak in program history. The record is a 24-game streak set across the 1985-86, 1986-87 and 1987-88 seasons. Coincindentally, that record streak was ended by George Mason on Jan. 6, 1987.
• George Mason also has a 17-game home winning streak. The Bison and Patriots are tied for the 12th-longest active home-court winning streaks in the nation.
What's Next?
• Bucknell's tough early season schedule continues on Saturday with a trip to Philadelphia to face La Salle. Tip-off is 4 p.m. at Tom Gola Arena.
