Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Men Host Lafayette Wednesday, Backcourt Club Luncheon Thursday
2/4/2014 6:05:00 PM | Men's Basketball
What: Lafayette (5-16, 1-9 PL) at Bucknell (10-11, 5-5 PL)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa.
When: Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014, 7 p.m.
Webcast: Bison Vision on Patriot League Network
Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 WEGH)
Internet Radio: BucknellBison.com
Live Statistics: BucknellBison.com
NOTE: The next Backcourt Club Men's Basketball Luncheon will be held on Thursday at La Primavera Restaurant in Lewisburg. The restaurant is located on Rt. 45, west of Rt. 15, and doors open at 11:45 a.m. The buffet lunch is $9 per person, and Coach Paulsen and select players will be in attendance to talk about the season thus far.
With a Win over Lafayette, Bucknell Would ...
• ... improve to 11-11 overall, 6-5 in the Patriot League.
• ... improve to 6-4 this season.
• ... sweep the season series from the Leopards and defeat them for the third time in a row.
• ... improve to 16-0 against the Leopards at Sojka Pavilion.
• ... go to 118-37 all-time at Sojka Pavilion and 82-17 against Patriot League opponents at Sojka.
• ... give head coach Dave Paulsen his 110th Bucknell victory, moving him into a tie for third with Malcolm Musser on Bucknell's all-time list. Musser had four different stints as head basketball coach at Bucknell: 1917-18, 1919-20, 1925-26 and 1932-42.
Headlines
• Bucknell put an end to a two-game losing streak with a 79-68 road win over Colgate on Saturday, and now the Bison host Lafayette in a rematch of the 2011 and 2013 Patriot League championship games. Bucknell will be gunning for a season sweep of the Leopards after winning a 96-86 shootout in Easton on Jan. 8.
• The Bison are tied for fifth place with Lehigh at 5-5 in Patriot League play. Bucknell entered the week one game behind fourth-place Holy Cross, which visits Colgate on Tuesday night, and the Bison will travel to Worcester to play the Crusaders on Sunday. Two key mileposts that teams are striving for are to finish at least sixth (to avoid playing a Patriot League Tournament first-round game) and then to finish at least fourth (to guarantee hosting a semifinal game).
• Senior Cameron Ayers is working on a streak of 15 straight double-figure scoring games and three straight 20-point games. Ayers continues to lead the team in scoring at 15.1 ppg. Ayers scored a team-high 23 points against both Boston University and Lehigh, and then he posted 21 points in the win at Colgate on Saturday.
• Brian Fitzpatrick has taken over the league lead in field-goal percentage (.619), thanks to a 35-for-47 (.745) stretch over his last eight games. Fitzpatrick is shooting 67.3% in Patriot League play.
• Chris Hass (10.9 ppg) has emerged as a scorer in league play, where he ranks fifth in the PL with a 14.9 ppg league average. That total includes a career-high 26-point performance against Colgate in the first meeting between the two teams. Hass missed the Jan. 22 Loyola game with a knee injury, but he returned against Boston University and scored 17 points off the bench, all of them coming during Bucknell's late comeback attempt. Hass returned to the starting lineup at Colgate on Saturday.
• Head coach Dave Paulsen made a lineup change at the point guard spot last time out. Ryan Hill started at the point at Colgate, with Steven Kaspar coming off the bench for the first time this season. Kaspar had a strong game anyway, posting 10 points, five assists, four rebounds and two steals in 23 minutes.
• This is a “new-look” Bison squad, as three standout players from last year's NCAA Tournament team graduated (Mike Muscala, Bryson Johnson, Joe Willman) and are all playing professionally overseas. Three Bucknell players made their first career starts on opening night at Stanford (Brian Fitzpatrick, Dom Hoffman, Ben Brackney), Ryan Frazier started for the first time in his career at Penn State, and Chris Hass did the same against Saint Francis.
• Bucknell returned two starters and 11 lettermen from last year's squad that won a school-record 28 games, captured Patriot League regular-season and tournament titles, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the sixth time in program history.
• Lafayette picked up its first Patriot League victory of the season on Saturday, routing Navy 72-54 at the Kirby Sports Center to snap an 11-game losing streak. The Leopards recently welcomed All-Patriot League forward Seth Hinrichs back after an extended injury absence. Hinrichs is averaging 17.5 points per game while shooting 46.4% from 3-point range. No shooter in the league is hotter than Joey Ptasinski right now. Ptasinski went 11-for-12 from the 3-point arc in Lafayette's last two games. Bryce Scott (13.1), Dan Trist (13.0), Ptasinski (11.8) and Nick Lindner (10.9) give Lafayette five players averaging in double figures on the season. The Leopards are the second-highest scoring team in the Patriot League at 72.2 ppg, but they also allow the most points (76.0) in the league.
How to Get the Game
• The Bucknell-Lafayette game will not be televised, however a live webcast will be available free of charge on Bison Vision on the Patriot League Network at BucknellBison.com or PatriotLeague.tv.
• The game 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 available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
• Live stats can be accessed at BucknellBison.com.
1988-89 Team to be Honored Feb. 15
• Bucknell's 1988-89 East Coast Conference championship and NCAA Tournament team will be staging a 25-year reunion on Saturday, Feb. 15 during the home game against Army. The team will be honored at halftime.
• Hall of Fame coach Charlie Woollum is expected to be in attendance along with his assistant coaches Tommy Thompson, George Petrie and Doug Allen. Among the players expected back are Mike Butts, Mike Joseph, Greg Leggett, Keith Fenton, Bobby Woollum, Rob Joy and Steve Leshinski. Also coming back for the event is the former “Voice of the Bison” Bob Behler, who is now the lead play-by-play man at Boise State.
Bucknell vs. Lafayette
• Bucknell and Lafayette have met 155 times previously, making the Leopards Bucknell's second most-played opponent (the Bison have played Lehigh 161 times). Since the series began in 1915, Lafayette leads 86-69.
• Since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, however, Bucknell has won 40 of 54 meetings.
• Bucknell has won all 15 matchups in Sojka Pavilion and is 24-3 against the Leopards in Lewisburg going back to the Patriot League's first season. Lafayette is actually 0-16 all-time in Sojka, including a neutral-site loss to American in the 2006 PL Tournament quarterfinals.
• The Bison and Leopards have met in each of the last three Patriot League Tournaments, including the 2011 and 2013 championship games. Bucknell won 72-57 in the 2011 title game, 79-52 in the 2012 semifinals and 64-56 in the 2013 final.
• Back on Jan. 8 at the Kirby Sports Center, Bucknell received a career-high 25 points from Ben Brackney, made 12 of 15 shots from 3-point distance, and defeated the Leopards 96-86 in a high-scoring affair. Chris Hass added 21 points, Cameron Ayers had 18 and Dom Hoffman 11 for the Bison, who shot 52.8% overall and closed out the game with some strong free-throw shooting down the stretch. The 96 points were Bucknell's most ever in a Patriot League road game and the most in any road contest since a 97-67 victory at Mount St. Mary's on Nov. 26, 1991.
Patriot League Success
• Bucknell is 216-101 (.681) all-time in Patriot League regular-season games, the best record of any league team. They have finished at least .500 in PL play in 19 of 23 seasons.
• Bucknell won the last three outright Patriot League regular-season titles, becoming the first team in league history to accomplish that feat.
• The Bison went 13-1 in the league in 2011 and 12-2 in each of the last two seasons, making them 37-5 over the previous three campaigns. Dating back to mid-2010, Bucknell has won 49 of its last 61 league games.
• Bucknell won Patriot League Tournament titles in 2005, 2006, 2011 and 2013. The Bison have made it to the semifinals 18 times and to the championship game 10 times in the 23-year history of the league.
• The Bison are the only team to go unbeaten in league play in a season (14-0 in 2006).
Last Time Out
• On Saturday at Colgate, Bucknell ran out to a 15-point halftime lead behind 55.6% shooting, withstood one Raiders run early in the second half, and finished off a 79-68 victory at Cotterell Court to sweep the season series. The Bison shot 50.9% for the game and made 8 of 17 from 3-point range.
• Cameron Ayers was Bucknell's catalyst, hitting big shots at key junctures of the game. Ayers finished with 21 points on 8-for-14 shooting (he started 8-for-11), including 3-for-5 from 3-point range.
• Ben Brackney also hit three 3-pointers, including two big ones in the second half. Brackney finished with 11 points and a game-high eight rebounds.
• Steven Kaspar came off the bench for the first time this season, and he turned in a solid 23 minutes with 10 points, five assists, four rebounds and two steals.
• Ryan Frazier also contributed heavily off the bench, recording eight points, two assists and a career-high four steals.
• Bucknell committed a season-low four turnovers.
Numbers Worth Noting
• After shooting 12-for-15 from 3-point range at Lafayette on Jan. 8, Bucknell ranked No. 1 in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage (.440). In the seven games since then, however, the Bison have gone 45-for-134 (.336) from the arc, lowering their season percentage to .402. That is still the 15th-best mark in the nation. Lafayette ranks eighth nationally at 40.7%.
• Oddly, Bucknell has shot much better on the road (45.6 FG%, 43.8 3FG%, 76.4 FT%) this season than at home (41.3 FG%, 34.9 3FG%, 73.8 FT%).
• In each of the last two seasons, Bucknell led the nation in defensive rebounding percentage (i.e. percentage of opponents' missed shots that Bucknell has rebounded). This year, despite playing almost exclusively with a four-guard lineup, the Bison still rank a respectable 9th out of 351 Division I teams in DR%. Last year, led by senior big men Mike Muscala and Joe Willman, Bucknell grabbed 79.0% of its opponents' misses. This year that figure is still a solid 76.6%.
• Bucknell has typically ranked among the very best in the nation in fewest turnovers under coach Dave Paulsen, and this year has been no different. The Bison are averaging 10.0 turnovers per game to rank 12th nationally. They turned the ball over a season-low four times on Saturday at Colgate.
• Last season Bucknell featured one of the nation's most prolific shot-blockers in Mike Muscala, but so far this season the Bison have blocked only 27 shots in 21 games, compared to 89 by their opponents. Bucknell ranked last nationally in blocks per game, before climbing out of the cellar with a season-high six rejections against Loyola on Jan. 22. At 1.3 blocks per game, the Bison are now ahead of Central Michigan.
• Bucknell ranks 25th nationally in fewest personal fouls per game (17.0).
• Brian Fitzpatrick is now shooting 67.3% in Patriot League games, and he is 35-for-47 (.745) in his last eight contests. His 61.9% accuracy for the season is No. 1 among all Patriot League players and No. 22 among all Division I players.
• Cameron Ayers now leads the Patriot League and ranks 47th in the nation in free-throw shooting at 87.7%. As a team, Bucknell ranks No. 21 nationally in free-throw percentage at 75.2%.
Who's Got Next?
• Bucknell travels to Holy Cross on Sunday for a noon tip-off on CBS Sports Network.
• The Bison rallied from 13 points down to hold off the Crusaders 61-57 at Sojka Pavilion on Jan. 11. Ben Brackney led the Bison with 13 points, while Malcolm Miller had 19 for Holy Cross.
• The Crusaders play at Colgate on Tuesday night before hosting the Bison on Sunday.
