Men's Basketball Off to Toledo for Pair of Progressive Legends Classic Games

11/23/2014 11:03:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: TBD

What: Bucknell vs. Toledo, and Detroit or Maryland-Eastern Shore
Where: Savage Arena, Toledo, Ohio
When: Monday, Nov. 24 (7 p.m.); Tuesday, Nov. 25 (4:30 p.m.)
Webcast: utrockets.com
Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 WEGH)
Internet Radio: BucknellBison.com
Live Statistics: utrockets.com

Bucknell at the Progressive Legends Classic
• Bucknell travels to Toledo for a pair of subregional games as part of the Progressive Legends Classic. The Bison will take on the host Rockets at 7 p.m. on Monday night, and then they will face either Detroit or Maryland-Eastern Shore on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
• Bucknell has never before played Toledo, Detroit or UMES.
• Last week's games against Michigan and Villanova were also Legends Classic contests.
• The Bison hosted a Legends Classic subregional in 2011-12 and swept three games from Princeton, Morehead State and West Alabama at Sojka Pavilion. Bucknell is 3-3 all-time in the Legends Classic.

Headlines
• Bucknell is in the midst of a brutal stretch of six games in 12 days to start the season. Each of the last three games — Michigan, Villanova and Mount St. Mary's — came against a 2014 NCAA Tournament Team. All three of those teams won either their conference regular-season or tournament title a year ago.
• After opening the season with a 75-72 home win over Marist, the Bison got down big early and fell to No. 24/23 Michigan 77-53 in Ann Arbor last Monday. Bucknell took some lessons from that performance and nearly knocked off No. 12 Villanova on Thursday night. The Bison rallied from 14 points down and had the lead in the final two minutes, but the Wildcats benefitted from some free throws and a key steal and prevailed 72-65. Then on Saturday defending Northeast Conference champion Mount St. Mary's rallied late for a 73-69 win at Sojka Pavilion.
• Junior Chris Hass was terrific in the two games against top-25 opponents last week. He scored 21 points at Michigan, and then pumped in a career-high 32 at Villanova, which is a program record for points in a game against a ranked opponent. In the two games combined, Hass produced 53 points and hit 16 of 26 from the field, 8 of 14 from 3-point distance and 13 of 14 from the foul line. Hass added 17 points in the loss to Mount St. Mary's.
• Head coach Dave Paulsen will coach in his 200th game at Bucknell on Tuesday. He is 116-82 in his seventh season on the Bison bench.
• The Bison were picked to finish fifth in the Patriot League in a preseason poll of the league's head coaches and sports information directors.
• Bucknell lost four players to graduation following last season, including 2014 Patriot League Player of the Year Cameron Ayers. Also gone are former starting center Brian Fitzpatrick and experienced role players Ben Brackney and Ryan Hill. The Bison do return 10 lettermen from last year's 16-14 squad, including 2014 Third Team All-Patriot League selection Chris Hass.
• Toledo finished 27-7, won the MAC West with a 14-4 record and went to the NIT last season. The Rockets have four starters back from that team. They opened the campaign with a 71-58 home win over Northern Arizona before dropping Legends Classic games at No. 15 VCU (87-78) and Oregon (78-68). Four Rockets are scoring in double figures, led by Julius Brown at 15.3 ppg. Nathan Boothe (13.0), Justin Drummond (11.7) and J.D. Weatherspoon (10.0) are also top scorers, and Weatherspoon leads the team in rebounding at 8.0 per game. Drummond is a Loyola (Md.) transfer and has two career appearances against Bucknell. He scored 14 points off the bench in a Greyhounds win over Bucknell in 2011-12, and he tallied four points in a reserve role as a freshman in 2010-11 in a game won by the Bison in Baltimore.
• Detroit finished 13-19 overall and 6-10 in the Horizon League last season. The Titans are off to a 2-2 start with wins over Rochester College (77-54) and South Alabama (66-53) and Legends Classic losses to Oregon (83-66) and Michigan (71-62). Juwan Howard Jr. scored 22 points in Saturday's win over South Alabama, and he leads the team in scoring at 19.5 ppg. Anton Wilson averages 12.5 ppg and is 10-for-15 from 3-point distance on the season. The Titans also feature a transfer that has played against Bucknell in the past. Starting center Patrick Ackerman scored two points in nine minutes for Penn State in the Nittany Lions' win over the Bison in 2012-13.
• Under the direction of first-year head coach Bobby Collins, Maryland-Eastern Shore is 1-4 this season. The Hawks' first three losses came at the hands of Virginia Tech, Villanova and VCU, and then they got in the win column with a 53-41 decision over the very same Mount St. Mary's squad that defeated Bucknell on Saturday night. Most recently UMES fell 57-53 at Saint Francis (Pa.) on Saturday. Devin Martin leads the team in scoring at 12.0 ppg.

How to Get the Games
• The Progressive Legends Classic games at Toledo will not be televised. A live webcast of the Bucknell-Toledo game will be available at utrockets.com.
• Both Bucknell games can be heard in the Susquehanna Valley on the radio on Eagle 107 (WEGH 107.3 FM), with Doug Birdsong calling the action. The pregame show begins 30 minutes before tip-off.
• The audio feed is also available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
• Live stats of both games can be accessed at utrockets.com.

Last Time Out
• Two areas that have been strengths in the recent past for the Bison — defensive rebounding and limiting turnovers — let them down in a 73-69 loss to defending Northeast Conference champion Mount St. Mary's on Saturday night. The Bison conceded 13 offensive boards, including 10 in the second half, and the Mount parlayed them into 15 second-chance points. Bucknell also committed 14 turnovers, which led directly to 19 points for Mount St. Mary's.
• Bucknell shot 54.3% for the game and 63.0% in the first half. The Bison led 41-36 at halftime and by as many as eight in the second half before going more than seven minutes without a field goal. It was a one-possession game either way for the last 8:11, until Mount St. Mary's Junior Robinson hit 1 of 2 at the line to make it a four-point game with 1.3 seconds left.
• Chris Hass led the Bison with 17 points on 5-for-6 shooting from the field and 6-for-7 from the free-throw line. However after going a perfect 5-for-5 in the first half, he was blanketed in the second half and did not attempt a field goal until taking a three at the buzzer with the Bison trailing by four.
• Dom Hoffman was also on fire for much of the evening. He went 6-for-8 from the field, all on mid-range jumpers, and scored 14 points. D.J. MacLeay joined Hass and Hoffman in double figures with 11 points.
• Freshman point guard Stephen Brown continued his strong recent play with four points, five rebounds and six assists in 26 bench minutes. He hit two big free throws — the first two of his career — with 3:27 remaining to give Bucknell a one-point lead.

Who's Got Next?
• Following the two games in Toledo, the Bison will return home to face Penn State on Friday at 4 p.m. at Sojka Pavilion.
• Penn State's last visit to Lewisburg came on Jan. 14, 1976, when the Bison prevailed 69-64 in Davis Gym. That would be Bucknell's last victory over the Nittany Lions until last season, when the Bison won 90-80 at the Bryce Jordan Center. Since that original meeting all the way back in 1897, these two teams have meet 101 times. Penn State leads the all-time series 76-25.
• Both teams will be wearing throwback uniforms. Bucknell's game outfits will replicate the team's 1976 uniforms, complete with “Bisons” across the chest, as the school's teams were known back in that era. During warm-ups, the players will wear orange and blue striped pants, while the shooting shirts will feature a simple, block “B”. That is an homage to the 1897 Bucknell basketball team, which defeated Penn State 24-4 in the very first game played between the two Central Pennsylvania schools. Bucknell's program started a year earlier in 1896, making it the oldest Division I men's basketball team along with Yale and Minnesota. Penn State's uniforms will feature a black and pink color scheme, which actually predates the now-familiar blue and white as the school's primary colors.