Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
19-15
Temple
24-10
Temple Holds off Bison 73-67 in Hard-Fought NIT Tilt
3/18/2015 10:31:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Chris Hass led four Bison in double figures with 15 points, and Nana Foulland registered a double-double with 14 points and 10 boards. J.C. Show tallied 13 points, Ryan Frazier had 10, and Bucknell parlayed 21 offensive rebounds into a 51-41 edge on the glass against a bigger Temple squad.
Seniors Steven Kaspar and Cory Starkey ended their careers with their typical hard-nosed play. Starkey grabbed eight rebounds, while Kaspar scored five points and led the Bison with six assists in his 133rd career appearance, which falls one short of the program record. Kaspar will graduate with 413 career assists, fifth-most in team history.
“Without a doubt, we would not have been in the right mindset to play this game without the leadership of our three seniors: Steven Kaspar, Cory Starkey and Joshea Singleton,” said head coach Dave Paulsen, whose team ends the year with a 19-15 record and a Patriot League regular-season championship. “Ultimately we reacted well to the heartbreak of not making the NCAA Tournament. Our guys really competed tonight and went toe-to-toe with a bigger, faster team. This is not how we wanted the season to end, but I am so proud of how far this group has come since November.”
First Team All-American Athletic Conference guard Will Cummings led all scorers with 30 points for the Owls, who improved to 24-10 on the season and will host fifth-seeded George Washington in the second round. Quenton Decosey added 13 points and Josh Brown 11, including the game's most pivotal bucket with a minute to play in a two-point game.
Hass' 3-pointer at the 11:10 mark gave Bucknell a 52-51 lead, but the Bison went ice cold after that, managing only one field goal over the next 9:17.
In the meantime, Cummings was taking over for the Owls. He scored nine points in an 11-3 run, capped by an acrobatic scoop shot that he converted into a 3-point play and a 62-55 Temple lead with 6:29 left. Those would be Cummings' final points of the night. Decosey stretched it to 64-56 with a late-shot-clock jumper with 4:10 to go, but the Bison still had another run in them.
Frazier's 3-pointer with 1:53 to go cut the deficit to 64-60, and then Bucknell intentionally fouled Jaylen Bond, a 34-percent free-throw shooter. Bond missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 1:37 left, and Hass answered with a floater in the lane to make it 64-62.
With Frazier denying Cummings the ball, Temple's biggest shot of the night came from Brown, who scored on a baseline drive to make it 66-62 with one minute to play. Hass was off the mark with a three, and Brown hit two big free throws to put Temple up 68-62.
Kaspar swished a trey from the left corner to make it 68-65, but Decosey and Obi Enechionyia made four straight at the line to ice it for the Owls. The contest featured 11 lead changes and three ties.
Bucknell made more field goals (24-23) and 3-point shots (9-6) than Temple, but the Owls had a 21-10 advantage at the free-throw line. Temple was 21-for-26 at the stripe, while the Bison were 10-for-18.
The first half was filled with runs for both sides. The Bison opened with a Hass 3-pointer and a Foulland jump-hook, and Temple coach Fran Dunphy took a quick timeout just 1:10 into the game. A Zach Thomas free throw made it 6-0, but then Temple rattled off 14 straight points via a 3-pointer, three 3-point plays and a short baseline jumper.
Down eight at 16-8, Bucknell then went on a 15-2 run, with six different players scoring in a five-minute span. Frazier's deep three at the end of the 30-second shot clock gave Bucknell the lead back at 19-18, and Hass hit an 8-footer to make it 23-18.
Temple answered with back-to-back treys in an 8-0 run, but then Show hit a couple of bombs, the latter putting Bucknell in front 33-29 with 4:24 left in the half. The Owls went back in front 35-33 after a Cummings 3-pointer, but Foulland jammed home an offensive rebound just before the buzzer to make it 35-all at the half.
Playing on the 10th anniversary of the historic 2005 NCAA Tournament victory over Kansas, the Bison nearly pulled off another postseason upset against a Temple team that routed Kansas 77-52 back on Dec. 22. Most pundits felt the Owls deserved an NCAA at-large bid, and Paulsen agreed.
“After watching them on film for the last few days and seeing them in person tonight, that looked like an NCAA Tournament team,” said Paulsen. “We really had our work cut out for us. We kept with them through sheer effort and determination, but ultimately to win a game like that you need to make a few more open shots and get a few more stops defensively.”
Bucknell shot 33.8 percent from the floor and went 9-for-27 from 3-point range. With the NIT using an experimental 30-second shot clock instead of the usual 35, the Bison set season highs with 71 shot attempts and 51 rebounds. It was the first time in more than three years that they pulled down more than 50 rebounds in a game.
Ben Oberfeld gave the Bison a nice lift off the bench with six rebounds, five of them coming on the offensive glass. Foulland's 10 boards equaled his career high, and the double-double was the first of his career.
Bucknell was playing in the NIT for the second time. In 2012 the Bison upset top-seeded Arizona on the road before falling at Nevada.
Former rivals in both the Middle Atlantic Conference and the East Coast Conference, Bucknell and Temple were meeting for the first time since the 1981-82 season. The Owls have now captured 11 straight in a series that dates back to 1920.
