Bucknell University Athletics
First-Place Bison Host Second-Place Eagles in Men's Basketball Clash Wednesday at Sojka Pavilion
2/8/2011 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 8, 2011
WHAT: American (16-7, 6-2 PL) at Bucknell (16-8, 7-1 PL)
WHERE: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa.
WHEN: Wednesday, Feb. 9, 7 p.m. ET
WEBCAST: Bison Vision 
RADIO: Eagle 107 (107.3 WEGH FM) and SportsJuice.com
LIVE STATS: GameTracker 
PROMOTIONS: BJ's $10,000 shot contest
Complete Game Notes in PDF Format 
With a Win over American, Bucknell Would ...
• ... give coach Dave Paulsen his 300th career win.
• ... maintain sole possession of first place in the Patriot League with an 8-1 record.
• ... take a two-game lead (with tiebreaker) over American with five to play.
• ... sweep the season series from the Eagles for the second straight year.
• ... win its 15th game in the last 17 outings.
• ... win its eighth straight home game and improve to 9-1 at home this season.
• ... improve to 79-29 overall and 56-12 against Patriot League competition at Sojka Pavilion.
• ... reach the 17-win plateau for the 18th time in program history.
• ... clinch a winning Patriot League record.
Hot Topics
• There should be a playoff feel in Sojka Pavilion on Wednesday night, as the Patriot League's top two teams square off in a battle for first place. If Bucknell wins, it will have a two-game lead over American with five games to play, not to mention holding all tiebreakers over the Eagles. If American wins, the Bison and Eagles will be tied for first place with a split in the season series.
• Bucknell rebounded from its first Patriot League loss of the season in a big way on Saturday, routing Navy 75-49 at Sojka Pavilion. One game after allowing 90 points in the loss at Army, the Bison held Navy to 27.6% shooting and outrebounded the Midshipmen 46-26. The victory kept Bucknell in first place in the Patriot League, one game ahead of American, which squeaked out a 62-61 win at Lehigh on Saturday. The Eagles have won five out of six since losing at home to Bucknell 75-60 on Jan. 12.
• Last month the Bison raced out to a 20-4 lead, went up by as many as 22 points and finished out a 75-60 win at Bender Arena. Mike Muscala had his best night as a collegiate player, finishing with 33 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots.
• The Bison are in the midst of their best 16-game stretch (14-2) since 2006-07, when the team set a modern-day record with a 14-game winning streak. Bucknell was riding the nation's fifth-longest winning streak and was one game away from the first perfect January since 1918-19 before falling to hot-shooting Army on Jan. 29.
• The Bison have been strong offensively since the end of the final exam break in December, averaging 74.8 points while shooting 47.8% from the field, 42.7% from the 3-point stripe and 80.6% from the foul line over their last 14 games. Bucknell has three players scoring in double figures and six averaging at least 7.6 points per game over that span, led by Mike Muscala at 17.1 ppg.
• Muscala has eight 20-point games this season and continues to lead the team in scoring (15.5), rebounding (7.5) and blocked shots (1.9). Muscala is coming off a career-high 17-rebound game against Navy on Saturday.
• Muscala last week was named to the Capital One Academic All-District Team. A management major with a 3.47 cumulative GPA (3.75 in the fall 2010 semester), Muscala now moves on to the national Academic All-America ballot.
• Hot-shooting sophomore Bryson Johnson (11.1) is also scoring in double figures, and seven Bison are scoring at least 6.5 points per game. Senior point guard Darryl Shazier is leading the Patriot League in assists (5.6) and ranks No. 3 in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.55). Shazier scored a career-high 28 points in the Jan. 8 win over Navy, and he had a 9-assist, no-turnover game against Holy Cross.
• Johnson is 45-for-88 (.511) from long range in the last 13 games, including a 7-for-12 showing at Boston College, a 5-for-7 effort at Richmond and a 4-for-6 performance against Colgate. Johnson leads the league and ranks 4th nationally in 3FG percentage on the season (.473).
• As a team, Bucknell is leading the Patriot League in all of the shooting categories: field-goal percentage (.456), 3-point percentage (.404) and free-throw percentage (.789). Among the national leaders, the Bison are 3rd in FT% and 14th in 3FG%.
• Defensively, Bucknell leads the league in field-goal percentage defense (.404).
• American used 17 points from Troy Brewer and a free throw from Vlad Moldoveanu with 2.2 seconds left to get past Lehigh 62-61 on Saturday. Moldoveanu scored 13 points and added a career-best six assists while Stephen Lumpkins totaled 13 points and nine boards.
• Moldoveanu ranks second in the Patriot League in scoring at an even 20.0 ppg. Lumpkins scores 12.8 ppg and leads the league in rebounding (7.9 rpg) and field-goal percentage (.577).
How to Get the Game
• The Bucknell-American game will not be televised, however a live Webcast will be available on Bison Vision at BucknellBison.com (subscription required).
• The game can be heard in the Susquehanna Valley on the radio on Eagle 107 (WEGH 107.3 FM), with Doug Birdsong and Ed Sigl on the call. The pregame show begins 30 minutes before tip-off.
• The audio feed is also available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com and SportsJuice.com.
• Live statistics are available on GameTracker via BucknellBison.com.
Bucknell vs. American Series Notes
• Bucknell has an overall 28-20 lead in an all-time series with American that includes some historic dates. The very first meeting on Jan. 14, 1939 also happened to be the first game ever played in Davis Gym (AU won 38-33). Coincidentally, American was also the opponent for the very last game ever played in Davis Gym on Jan. 11, 2003 (a 63-52 Bison win).
• Bucknell has won 16 of 22 series meetings in Lewisburg, including eight out of nine at Sojka Pavilion, but the Bison are just 4-6 at Bender Arena since American joined the Patriot League in 2001-02.
• As Patriot League rivals, Bucknell leads 13-8. The Bison defeated American eight straight times during one stretch, including victories in the 2005 and 2006 PL Tournament semifinals.
• After American swept the season series in 2008-09, the Bison returned the favor last season, winning 72-68 in overtime at Sojka Pavilion and 73-59 at Bender Arena. Amazingly, Bucknell totaled only four turnovers in those two games, including a school-record low of one turnover in the OT win at Sojka.
• In the first meeting of this season, Mike Muscala recorded 33 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots to lead Bucknell to a one-sided 75-60 win at Bender Arena. The Bison sprinted to a 20-4 lead and went up by as many as 22 in the second half. Joe Willman and Bryson Johnson added 12 points each for Bucknell, which shot 50.0% from the field and outscored American 20-5 at the foul line. Defensively, Bryan Cohen and company helped limit high-scoring forward Vlad Moldoveanu to seven points on 3-for-12 shooting. That remains Moldoveanu's low point total of the season.
Patriot League Success
• The Bison are 182-92 (.664) in Patriot League regular-season games, the best record of any league team. They have finished at least .500 in PL play in 17 of 21 seasons (including this season).
• The Bison won a league-record 23 straight contests against conference foes from Feb. 23, 2005 to Jan. 12, 2007.
• Bucknell had a streak of 35 straight wins at home against conference opponents come to an end in 2008.
• Bucknell has an all-time record of 24-18 in 20 Patriot League Tournaments. Bucknell has beaten every team in the league at least once in the postseason. The Bison have reached the championship game six times, including wins in 2005 and 2006, and reached at least the semifinals in 15 of 20 years.
More from the Navy Game
• The Bison responded to their first loss of 2011 in a big way, routing Navy 75-49 on Saturday. Bucknell ran out to a 10-0 lead and maintained a double-digit lead for the final 32:32 of the game.
• Mike Muscala continues to blaze new trails, this time setting a career high with 17 rebounds to go with 11 points and a career-best-tying five assists. The 17 rebounds were the most since Charles Lee grabbed 18 in an overtime win at Yale in December 2004.
• Joe Willman also recorded a double-double -- his second in a row -- with a career-high 18 points and 10 rebounds. Willman went 9-for-13 from the field.
• Bucknell had two players record double-doubles in the same game for the first time since that 2004 Yale game. That day Lee finished with 22 points and 18 rebounds, and Chris McNaughton tallied 10 points and 11 rebounds.
• Bryson Johnson resumed his hot 3-point shooting, making 5 of 9 en route to an 18-point evening. Johnson, who is now tied for sixth on Bucknell's single-season 3-point chart with 69, also got fouled shooting a three and made all three free throws.
• Freshman Cameron Ayers backed up his 17-point game against Army with nine points and two assists in the Navy win.
• Bryan Cohen helped get Bucknell going offensively with two early 3-pointers, and then he helped shut down Navy's Jordan Sugars, the No. 3 scorer in the Patriot League at over 16 ppg. Sugars finished with three points on 1-for-9 shooting, with the lone field goal coming on a fastbreak layup with Cohen out of the game late in the second half.
• Bucknell had an uncharacteristic 20 turnovers, but did have 20 assists on 31 field goals.
• Freshman Ryan Hill gave Bucknell a good eight-minute stint in the first half after Darryl Shazier left the game with two fouls. Hill had a nice slash to the basket for a finger roll, and the Bison outscored the Mids 19-12 after Shazier went to the bench.
• Shazier was held to two points, 26 below his total the first time Bucknell and Navy met this season, but he did have eight assists and only two turnovers in 24 minutes.
• Bucknell held Navy to 27.6% overall shooting, including a 5-for-31 showing from 3-point range.
Sojka Savvy
• Bucknell is once again doing well to protect its home floor in 2010-11. The Bison have won seven straight home games and are 8-1 at Sojka Pavilion this season. The only home loss was a 77-73 setback to Wagner on Nov. 29.
• The Bison have won nine straight regular-season home games against Patriot League foes, dating back to a 69-67 loss to Navy on Jan. 9, 2010. (Bucknell did fall to Holy Cross at home in the Patriot League Tournament last season).
• All-time at Sojka Pavilion, Bucknell is 78-29 (.729) overall and 55-12 (.821) against Patriot League opponents.
On a Roll on the Road
• Bucknell is 7-2 in its last nine road games.
• In those nine games, the Bison scored 74.8 points per game and shot 48.0% from the field, 45.0% from 3-point range and 83.0% from the free-throw line. They also had 140 assists and 101 turnovers in the nine games.
• All told this season, Bucknell is shooting 47.2% from the field and 43.7% from 3-point range while averaging 71.4 ppg on the road. On the other hand, at home the Bison shoot 43.6% from the field, 37.0% from the arc and score 70.9 ppg.
• Bucknell's recent five-game road winning streak was the longest since 2006-07, when it won six straight on the road. The school record for consecutive road victories is eight, set in 1974-75 and 1918-19 into 1919-20.
A Balanced Attack
• This season Bucknell has seven players averaging at least 6.5 points per game, the most in the Patriot League.
• Six different players have led the team in scoring in at least one game this season.
• Of Bucknell's 13 active players on the roster, 10 have produced at least one double-figure scoring game in his career. Five have recorded at least one 20-point game in his career.
Statistically Speaking
Some other notable numbers from Bucknell's first 24 games:
• Bucknell has a 366-to-273 assist-to-turnover ratio, the best mark in the Patriot League and 19th-best in the nation. The Bison have had a negative ratio only four times all season, against Marquette, Loyola, Dartmouth and Richmond. Their 11.4 turnovers per game is the 23rd-best mark in Division I basketball.
• The Bison as a team are shooting 40.4% from long range, up from last season's 32.9% mark. Bucknell ranks 14th nationally in 3-point accuracy.
• Bucknell's 45.2% field-goal shooting is the best mark in the Patriot League, and the Bison rank No. 1 in the league and No. 3 in the nation in free-throw percentage at 78.9%.
• While the team's 3-point percentage is up, a lower percentage of Bucknell's total shots have come from beyond the 3-point arc. So far 31.8% of the team's attempts have come from long range, down from 34.7% last year and 35.0% in 2008-09.
• Bucknell has recorded an assist on 61.3% of its field goals this season. By comparison, last year the team was credited with an assist on only 51.6% of its baskets.
• Bucknell has scored 70 or more points in 13 of its last 14 games, including eight straight. Prior to this season, the last time a Bucknell team reached 70 in eight consecutive games was all the way back in 1995-96. The Bison have scored 70+ points 17 times so far, their most since doing it 22 times Hall-of-Fame coach Charlie Woollum's final season in 1993-94.
• The Bison have held eight of their last 11 opponents under 40% shooting from the field.
• Bucknell's average margin of victory in its eight Patriot League wins is 13.6.
• The team has 11 double-digit wins this season, its most since recording 11 in 2006-07.
• The Bison are now 10-0 when outrebounding opponents this season.
Who's Got Next?
• Following the American game, Bucknell starts a three-game road trip with a tough test at Holy Cross on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. That will be followed by trips to Lafayette and Colgate.
