Men's Basketball Goes for 2nd Straight Win Saturday vs. Army at Sojka Pavilion

1/16/2015 3:07:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: TBD

What: Army (11-5, 2-3 PL) at Bucknell (8-10, 3-2 PL)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa.
When: Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015, 7 p.m.
Internet Video: Bison Vision on the Patriot League Network (free)
Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 WEGH)
Internet Radio: BucknellBison.com
Live Statistics: BucknellBison.com
Tickets: 570-577-1000 or buy online

With a Win over Army, Bucknell Would ...
• ... improve to 4-2 in the Patriot League and 9-10 overall.
• ... improve to 227-105 all-time in Patriot League games.
• ... win its sixth straight home game and improve to 7-2 at Sojka Pavilion this season.
• ... improve to 127-41 all-time in Sojka Pavilion and 88-19 in Sojka against Patriot League opponents.
• ... improve to 48-21 all-time against Army and 28-5 at home against the Black Knights.

Headlines
• The last time Army visited Sojka Pavilion the Black Knights stunned the Bison with a game-ending 9-1 run to steal a 72-71 decision in the 2014 Patriot League Tournament quarterfinals. Bucknell will be looking to avenge that loss, and remain at or near the top of a crowded Patriot League leaderboard, when Army comes back to Sojka on Saturday night.
• The Bison have alternated wins and losses to get to 3-2 in Patriot League play. Bucknell has beaten American, Lafayette and Navy at home, with the losses coming on the road at Colgate and Holy Cross. On the season, the Bison are 6-2 at home but 1-8 on the road.
• The Patriot League standings are a jumbled mess through five rounds of league play. Colgate has emerged as the sole leader at 4-1, but five teams are a game behind at 3-2, including Bucknell.
• Junior Chris Hass is Bucknell's leading scorer at 15.4 ppg, although he comes into Saturday's game looking to shake a 28-for-87 (.322) shooting slump over the last seven games. Hass was terrific in the two games against top-25 opponents earlier in the year. 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. Including a 14-point performance against Penn State and a 26-point showing at Wake Forest, Hass averaged 23.3 ppg in the four games against major-conference opponents this season.
• Freshman guard J.C. Show went into the Christmas break mired in a 5-for-27 shooting slump (2-18 3FG), but he has heated up in the six games since then, making 24 of 44 shots (16-28 3FG). Show scored a career-high 23 pts. at Siena on Dec. 28.
• Freshman center Nana Foulland was last week's Lids Team Sports Patriot League Rookie of the Week. Foulland had the best game of his young career at Colgate, when he posted 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting. Dating back to the Penn State game on Nov. 28, Foulland is averaging 10.2 ppg, 5.1 rpg and shooting 53.8% in 12 contests. Foulland set a career high with six blocked shots against Lafayette, the most by a Bucknell freshman since Mike Muscala had seven against Navy in 2009-10.
• 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 did return 10 lettermen from last year's 16-14 squad, including a 2014 Third Team All-Patriot League selection in Hass.
• Army brought back all five starters from last year's team that advanced to the Patriot League Tournament semifinals, including 2014-15 Preseason Player of the Year Kyle Wilson, who hit the winning shot against Bucknell in the quarterfinals. Wilson currently leads the Patriot League in scoring at 19.9 ppg. Tanner Plomb, who scored 28 points in an overtime win at Holy Cross on Saturday, averages 14.1 ppg for a Black Knights squad that scores a robust 76.8 ppg. Army started the year 5-0 and went 9-2 in non-league play, including an overtime in at USC, but the Black Knights dropped three of their first four Patriot League contests to Lafayette, Lehigh and Navy.

How to Get the Game
• The Bucknell-Army game will not be televised, however a free live webcast will be available on Bison Vision on the Patriot League Network. Log on to PatriotLeague.TV to access the stream.
• 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 also available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
• Live stats can be accessed at GoArmySports.com.

Last Time Out
• Down six to Navy with just over two minutes to play, Bucknell found a savior in sophomore guard John Azzinaro on Wednesday. Azzinaro drilled 3-pointers on three consecutive offensive possessions to help the Bison pull out a 65-63 win at Sojka Pavilion. Azzinaro tied the game with the second of those treys with 1:17 to play. Then he dove on the floor to force a held ball near midcourt, giving Bucknell possession on the arrow, and he completed the flurry with the game-winning 3-pointer from the right wing with 0:11 left.
• Azzinaro finished the night with a career-high 19 points on near-perfect shooting: 6-for-7 overall, 5-for-5 from 3-point range, and 2-for-2 from the foul line. Azzinaro's memorable performance came on a night when he was removed from the starting lineup after 13 straight starts.
• Nana Foulland also scored in double figures for the Bison with 12 points, to go with seven rebounds and four blocked shots.
• Stephen Kaspar played 29 minutes off the bench and was one of the MVPs of the game for the Bison even though he did not make a field goal. Kaspar handed out a season-high six assists, the last two coming on Azzinaro's tying and go-ahead 3-pointers, and he also had four rebounds and two steals with no turnovers. His biggest contribution came on the defensive end, where he bottled up Navy sharpshooter Brandon Venturini (3-10 FG, 1-5 3FG). Kaspar had key deflections on each of Bucknell's last two defensive stops, and he also alertly fouled Venturini with the Bison leading by three with 2.3 seconds left.
• Freshman Stephen Brown made his first collegiate start and tallied four points, three rebounds, an assist, a blocked shot an no turnovers in 23 minutes. He was joined by Foulland and J.C. Show in the lineup, giving Bucknell three freshman starters in a game for the first time in 11 years. The last time that happened was In the final game of the 2003-04 season, when Chris McNaughton, Abe Badmus and John Clark all started as rookies.
• Zach Thomas scored five points in 17 minutes off the bench in his return from a one-game injury absence. At one point, the Bison had all four freshmen on the floor at the same time.
• Bucknell shot 41.2% from the floor but made 9 of 15 from 3-point range. Navy shot 44.9% but was just 2 of 10 from the arc.
• Bucknell evened the all-time series with Navy at 35-35.

Bucknell vs. Army
• The Bison hold a 47-21 lead in a series that dates back to 1929. Bucknell had its seven-game series winning streak come to an end with a 74-67 loss at West Point last season.
• The Bison are 27-5 all-time at home against Army.
• Army won the first 10 series showdowns, nine of them coming prior to 1966.
• As Patriot League rivals, Bucknell has won 46 of 57 meetings.
• In Patriot League Tournament action, Bucknell is 7-2 against Army. Seven of those nine postseason meetings have come in the quarterfinals, including Army's 72-71 win at Sojka Pavilion last season.
• Last year, Bucknell and Army split their regular-season games, with the home team winning both, before the fifth-seeded Black Knights knocked off the fourth-seeded Bison in the postseason. In the first meeting at Christl Arena, Kyle Wilson scored 28 points and Josh Herbeck went 6-for-6 from the 3-point arc to lift Army to a 74-67 win. Brian Fitzpatrick scored 17 points on 8-for-8 shooting to lead the Bison. In the rematch at Sojka Pavilion, Cameron Ayers (22 points) and Fitzpatrick (15 points) celebrated their Senior Night with big performances and the Bison won 73-61. Bucknell held Wilson to two points, both on free throws, in that game, but three weeks later Wilson would score all of Army's points in a game-ending 9-1 run in the Patriot League Tournament. Wilson hit the go-ahead jumper with 12.5 seconds left in the game and the Bison could not match it at the other end. Chris Hass had 18 points and seven rebounds.

Patriot League Success
• Bucknell is 226-105 (.683) all-time in Patriot League regular-season games, the best record of any league team. The Bison have finished at least .500 in PL play in 20 of the 24 Patriot League seasons.
• Bucknell won three straight outright Patriot League regular-season titles from 2011-13, 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 both 2012 and 2013, making them 37-5 over those three campaigns. Dating back to mid-2010, Bucknell has won 58 of its last 74 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 24-year history of the league.
• The Bison are the only team to go unbeaten in league play in a season (14-0 in 2006).

Numbers Worth Noting
• Bucknell led the nation in defensive rebounding percentage in both 2011-12 and 2012-13 and ranked in the top 10 last season, but the Bison struggled a bit on the defensive glass in non-league play this season. They have turned that around in league play, however, allowing only 31 offensive boards in five Patriot League games.
• Last season the Bison shot the ball significantly better on the road than at home, but this year those numbers have reversed. At Sojka Pavilion the Bison are shooting 46.0% from the field and 42.1% from 3-point distance. In road games those numbers drop to 40.0% from the field and 30.7% from the arc. Bucknell is averaging 71.8 points at home, where it is 6-2 this season, and 60.2 on the road where it is 1-8.
• Bench scoring has been a positive for Bucknell this season. Bison reserves are averaging 26.2 points per game, compared to 16.2 for their opponents. In the last six games, Bucknell has piled up an 188-80 edge in bench scoring.
• In Patriot League play Bucknell has a +4.8 rebounding margin and an 108-80 edge in free-throw attempts.
• Bucknell's leader in individual +/- (scoring differential while that player was on the floor) is J.C. Show at +37. D.J. MacLeay is next at +24.
• Bucknell has a 116-90 assist-turnover ratio in its victories this season and a 113-130 ratio in its losses.
• Nana Foulland has made 13 of his last 17 free throws after starting the season 13-for-33.
• As a team, however, the Bison have struggled at the foul line in recent games. Bucknell is shooting 67.6% at the line in its five Patriot League contests.

Who's Got Next?
• Bucknell will play its next two contests on the road, starting Wednesday night at Loyola at 8 p.m. That game will be televised live on the American Sports Network. My Network TV (WQMY) will be picking up the broadcast in the local area.
• Loyola is 2-3 in Patriot League play so far (6-10 overall). The Greyhounds will host Boston University on Sunday before the Bison come to Baltimore.