Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
28-5
Lafayette
19-15
BUCKNELL PUNCHES DANCE TICKET AFTER 64-56 WIN OVER LAFAYETTE IN PATRIOT LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
3/13/2013 8:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 13, 2013
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LEWISBURG, Pa. - Bucknell overcame both the burden of sky-high expectations and a red-hot Lafayette team on Wednesday night, finishing off another championship run with a 64-56 victory in the Patriot League championship game at Sojka Pavilion. Behind a combined 34 points and 19 rebounds from the senior frontcourt tandem of Mike Muscala and Joe Willman, the Bison are headed to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in the last three years and for the sixth time overall.
Muscala recorded his national-best 22nd double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds, Willman logged 14 points and eight boards, and junior Ben Brackney keyed a critical effort from the Bison bench with eight points. Muscala earned Patriot League Tournament MVP honors for the second time, and he joined Willman and Cameron Ayers (nine points, six rebounds) on the All-Tournament Team.
Muscala posted three straight double-doubles in the Patriot League Tournament, and he collected 56 points and a tournament-record 38 rebounds in the three wins over Navy, Army and Lafayette. He became the first player in Patriot League history to win the Player of the Year and Tournament MVP trophy in two different seasons, also doing so when the Bison won the title in 2011.
Bucknell defeated Lafayette at Sojka Pavilion in the 2011 Patriot League title game, but last season the Bison fell at home to Lehigh in the final. They went on to knock off Arizona in the first round of the NIT, but this veteran group, led all year by the senior trio of Muscala, Willman and Bryson Johnson, admittedly carried the burden of the 2012 championship-game loss for the last year. Now the winningest senior class in program history is back in the Big Dance.
"Before the game tonight, we said `We prepared for this game for a year,'" said Muscala after the game. "I know personally, I speak for the rest of the guys, this is what we worked for all summer, all season long."
"They really had a target on their backs, and they answered every challenge," said head coach Dave Paulsen, who earned his 99th Bucknell win - and a record 78th in the last three seasons - and will be taking a Bison team to the NCAA Tournament for the second time. "This group has never had a bad day of practice. Their focus level, their energy level and their unselfishness has just been terrific."
The Bison will find out their NCAA destination when the brackets are announced on Sunday at 6 p.m. on CBS.
With the victory, Bucknell (28-5) broke its own school and league records for wins in a season. The Bison previously won Patriot League titles in 2005, 2006 and 2011, and their previous NCAA berths came in 1987, 1989, 2005, 2006 and 2011. Bucknell won first-round games in 2005 (Kansas) and 2006 (Arkansas). In 2011, the Bison fell to eventual national champion Connecticut.
Bucknell has sparkled defensively all season, and that was the key again in the final against a Lafayette team that came in with a seven-game winning streak behind a potent offense. The Bison held the Leopards to 18 points on 29.2-percent shooting in the first half, and after Lafayette got hot for awhile in the second, Bucknell came up with key stops in crunch time.
Lafayette came in averaging 69.5 points and 8.2 made 3-pointers per game, but the Bison held them to 56 points and 5-for-15 shooting from the arc. Three of those treys came in the final 1:47 as the Leopards were forced to fire from long range after Bucknell built its lead from three up to 15 in a critical four-minute stretch.
"We became a great defensive team," said Paulsen afterward. "At times it made us not as pretty to watch offensively as we would like, but we felt like that was going to help us win a championship. These guys bought into it."
The Bison limited Lafayette's leading scorer, Seth Hinrichs (14.7 ppg), to seven points. Point guard Tony Johnson, the Patriot League leader in field-goal percentage (.557), hit 4 of 13 shots for 11 points while being hounded by Steven Kaspar and Ryan Frazier all night. Reserve guard Joey Ptaskinski scored all 15 of his points in the second half, and he almost singlehandedly got the Leopards all the way back from a 12-point deficit.
Bucknell stretched an eight-point halftime lead (26-18) up to 12 with two quick buckets to start the second half, with Kaspar assisting on layups to Muscala and Willman. Three straight buckets by Ptasinski keyed a 9-0 Lafayette run, bring the Leopards back within 30-27.
The freshman Frazier then made two key plays to slow down Lafayette's momentum. With the lead down to three and the shot clock dwindling, Frazier drove hard to the basket and finished a tough lefty layup. Then he broke up the inbounds pass, and Johnson fed Ayers for a fastbreak layup to push the lead back up to seven.
Ptasinski scored four points in a 6-1 run, with his backdoor layup with 7:18 to play bringing the Leopards within three again at 41-38. Then Muscala took over.
He answered the Ptasinski layup with a spinning shot on the right baseline. After Dan Trist made it 43-40 with a baseline jumper, Muscala finished a tough lefty jump hook on the baseline that ignited a game-changing 12-0 run.
Ayers stole the ball from Johnson, and at the other end Ayers put back his own miss to make it 47-40. After a rare miss from Ptasinski, Muscala's 15-footer from the left baseline danced on the rim a few times before dropping, bringing the home crowd to its feet as Lafayette was forced to call timeout suddenly down by nine.
Muscala rebounded a missed 3-pointer by Bryce Scott, and then Frazier made a sweet pass off his own offensive rebound, resulting in a Willman layup. Willman and Frazier both converted both ends of 1-and-1s to boost the Bucknell lead all the way up to 15 at 55-40 with 2:54 to play.
Lafayette did enough to keep the home fans nervous, extending the game with scores, timeouts and fouls. Bucknell left three points on the free-throw line with three straight 1-for-2s. But in that stretch Johnson made a key play passing out of a trap to Willman for a layup.
Bryce Scott hit two treys and made all three free throws after being fouled on a 3-point shot, helping Lafayette get within six with 20 seconds left. Brackney, who canned two big 3-pointers when Bucknell was struggling a bit offensively in the first half, iced the game with two free throws with 18.1 seconds left.
Muscala grabbed his 11th rebound on a Scott miss with eight seconds left. Lafayette conceded the victory, and Muscala walked to midcourt with his hands raised before being engulfed by a large contingent of court-storming Bucknell students who had come back to campus in the middle of their Spring Break to catch the game.
Muscala broke the Bucknell single-season scoring record. He now has 628 career points, surpassing the 619 that Bill Courtney amassed in 1990-91. He became the seventh player in league history to be named to the All-Tournament Team three times, and he is the third two-time Patriot League MVP, joining former Bison standout and current assistant coach Charles Lee(2005, 2006) and American's Garrison Carr (2008, 2009).
The Bison went 14-1 at home this season and are now 78-15 at Sojka Pavilion against Patriot League foes, including a perfect 15-0 mark against Lafayette.
Bucknell-Lafayette Highlights
