Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Opens NIT Play Wednesday at Monmouth
3/14/2016 8:30:00 PM | Men's Basketball
What: #8 Bucknell (17-13, 14-4 PL) at #1 Monmouth (27-7, 17-3 MAAC), NIT First Round
Where: The MAC, West Long Branch, N.J.
When: Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 7:30 p.m.
TV/Webcast: ESPN3
Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 FM WEGH)
Internet Radio: BucknellBison.com
Live Statistics: BucknellBison.com
Tickets: Online Campus Box Office
Bucknell Probable Starters
G: Stephen Brown (9.2 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 5.3 apg)
G: Ryan Frazier (8.2 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 1.7 apg)
G: Chris Hass (17.2 ppg, 3.9 rpg)
F: Dom Hoffman (6.2 ppg, 4.6 rpg)
C: Nana Foulland (11.8 ppg, 6.9 rpg)
With a Win over Monmouth, Bucknell Would ...
• ... advance to the second round of the NIT to face either No. 4 George Washington or No. 5 Hofstra.
• ... improve to 18-13 overall, reaching the 18-win mark for the 18th time in program history.
• ... improve to 2-2 all-time in NIT games.
• ... improve to 10-6 on the road this season.
Headlines
• Bucknell captured the outright Patriot League regular-season title for the fifth time in the last six years with a 14-4 ledger, but it fell victim to Cinderella story Holy Cross in the PL Tournament quarterfinals. The ninth-seeded Crusaders upset the Bison 77-72 in double overtime, and then they went on to capture the tourney title and take the league's automatic NCAA Tournament bid.
• The PL quarterfinal upset relegated the Bison to the NIT. This will be Bucknell's third NIT appearance, all coming in the last five years. In 2012 the Bison knocked off No. 1 seed Arizona 65-54 in Tucson before falling 75-67 at Nevada in the second round. Last season, Bucknell dropped a 73-67 decision at top-seeded Temple in a back-and-forth game that had 11 lead changes.
• Bucknell survived a furious charge from Lehigh down the stretch to capture the Patriot League regular-season title. The Bison had a three-game lead reduced to one after back-to-back losses to Lehigh and Colgate. But Bucknell responded with four straight wins — including two nailbiters on the road to finish the season — to maintain sole possession of first place over the Mountain Hawks, who closed the regular season with nine wins in a row.
• Defense was the difference for Bucknell in Patriot League play. In their 14 conference wins, the Bison allowed 65.4 points per game while holding the opposition to 38.3% shooting overall and 29.9% from 3-point range. Meanwhile, in the four Patriot League losses, opponents scored 81.0 points per game while shooting 52.3% from the field and 43.4% from 3-point range.
• Bucknell finished the Patriot League slate at 14-4. That came on the heels of a seven-game losing streak to close out the non-league slate. This will be the first time in team history that the Bison have had a winning overall record in a season in which it endured a downturn of that length. Prior to this season, Bucknell had 14 losing streaks of seven or more games — 12 coming prior to 1971 — and finished below .500 in each of those seasons.
• The Bison have scored 80 or more points 16 times and 90 or more four times, and they lead the Patriot League in scoring at 78.9 points per game. Back on Jan. 9 they had a 98-point showing against Holy Cross — their most points in a league game in 22 years — in which they knocked down 16 3-pointers. Bucknell made 40 field goals and tossed in 94 points against Army West Point on Jan. 30. The Bison rank 44th nationally in points per game.
• Including his 40-point game at Army West Point on Jan. 2 and a 30-point effort at Lafayette, senior Chris Hass is averaging a team-best 17.2 points per game. That is the third-best mark in the Patriot League behind Army's Tanner Plomb and Lehigh's Tim Kempton. A First Team All-Patriot League selection, Hass canned a career-high seven 3-pointers in a 29-point performance against N.C. State on Dec. 5. Hass also had 26 against Wake Forest on Nov. 15. Hass became Bucknell's 39th all-time 1,000-point scorer in the game against Columbia, and he now ranks tied for 11th (with Bryson Johnson) on Bucknell's career scoring list (1,384).
• Sophomore point guard Stephen Brown was sensational in Patriot League play, averaging 11.1 points per game on 56.3% shooting with 98 assists, 28 steals and just 34 turnovers and 30 fouls. After scoring a career-high 21 points on 8-for-10 shooting in the win at Boston University on Jan. 23, Brown was named the Lids Team Sports Patriot League Player of the Week for the first time in his career. Brown earned Third Team All-Patriot League and Patriot League All-Defensive honors.
• Like Bucknell, Monmouth also received an automatic bid to the NIT, although many pundits felt that the Hawks deserved an NCAA at-large spot. Monmouth boasts a 27-7 record, and its school-record victory total includes non-conference wins over No. 17 Notre Dame, UCLA, USC and Georgetown. The Hawks won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular-season title with a 17-3 record, however they lost to second-seeded Iona 79-76 in the MAAC Tournament championship game. The Hawks are led by MAAC Player of the Year Justin Robinson, who averages 19.5 points per game and has set a school record with 664 points so far this season. MAAC Rookie of the Year Micah Seaborn scores 13.1 points per game, and Deon Jones averages 10.2 points and a team-high 6.3 rebounds per game.
How to Get the Game
• The Bucknell-Monmouth game will stream live on ESPN3. John Yardley will call the play-by-play alongside color analyst Malcolm Huckaby.
• 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, and for a small charge through the official Bison Athletics mobile app available in the Apple and Android marketplaces.
• Live statistics can be viewed at GoMUHawks.com.
Patriot League Success
• Bucknell is 250-112 (.691) all-time in Patriot League regular-season games, the best record of any league team. The Bison have now finished at least .500 in PL play in 22 of the 26 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 have now won five of the last six, after claiming titles in 2015 and 2016 as well.
• Bucknell has now won 10 Patriot League regular-season titles in 26 years. No other team has more than five.
• This year Bucknell made its seventh Patriot League Tournament appearance as the No. 1 seed.
• 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 82 of its last 105 league games.
• Bucknell won Patriot League Tournament titles in 2005, 2006, 2011 and 2013. The Bison have made it to the semifinals 19 times and to the championship game 10 times in the 25-year history of the league.
• The Bison are the only team to go unbeaten in league play in a season (14-0 ten years ago in 2006).
Bucknell vs. Monmouth
• This will be the first time Bucknell and Monmouth have met in men's basketball.
Bucknell vs. The MAAC
• Bucknell is 47-52 (.475) all-time against the teams that currently comprise the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, including a 1-2 record this season (win over Manhattan, losses to Siena and Fairfield) and a 2-1 mark last season (wins over Marist and Fairfield, loss at Siena). The Bison are 30-24 against Rider, 6-4 against Marist, 4-5 vs. Niagara, 3-2 vs. Manhattan, 2-4 vs. Iona, 1-0 vs. St. Peter's, 1-4 vs. Fairfield, 0-6 vs. Canisius, and 0-3 vs. Siena.
Five Titles in Six Years Puts Bison in Elite Company
• Bucknell has now captured the outright (no ties) Patriot League regular-season title in five of the last six years. The only other Division I team that can make that claim is Kansas, which recently wrapped up another Big 12 title.
• Coming into the 2015-16 season, Bucknell, Kansas, Harvard and Davidson were the only teams with four outright titles in the last five years. Harvard and Davidson did not win their conferences this season.
All-Patriot League Notes
• Bucknell did well in this year's All-Patriot League and Academic All-Patriot League voting.
• Three players were named the All-Patriot League Team, with Chris Hass named to the First Team, Nana Foulland to the Second Team, and Stephen Brown to the Third Team.
• Hass earned his third career all-conference citation, and his second straight first-team nod. His selection gives Bucknell at least one first-team all-conference player in 30 of the last 33 seasons, dating back to the team's tenure in the East Coast Conference.
• Hass is the seventh Bucknell player to earn three All-Patriot League honors, joining Brian Anderson, Kevin Bettencourt, Charles Lee, Chris McNaughton, Mike Muscala (4) and Cameron Ayers.
• It was the first All-Patriot League selection for Foulland and Brown, who are both sophomores. Foulland was a member of the All-Rookie Team in 2015.
• Brown and Ryan Frazier both made the inaugural five-man Patriot League All-Defensive Team.
• Frazier and Foulland were both named to the five-man Academic All-Patriot League Team. Frazier carries a 3.56 grade-point average in accounting and financial management, while Foulland has a 3.36 GPA with a double major in history and education.
• Nathan Davis was voted by his fellow coaches as 2016 Patriot League Coach of the Year. The team's 17 wins to date are by far the most for a first-year coach at Bucknell —John Plant had the previous mark of 14 in 1926-27 — and Davis becomes the fourth coach to earn Patriot League Coach of the Year honors in his first year at a school. Bucknell's Pat Flannery was the first to accomplish that feat in 1994-95, and it was repeated by Lehigh's Billy Taylor in 2002-03 and American's Mike Brennan in 2013-14.
• Davis is Bucknell's eighth Patriot League Coach of the Year. His predecessor, Dave Paulsen, received the honor three times, including last season. Flannery also won the award three times, and Charlie Woollum was honored once.
Last Time Out
• Kept alive by Robert Champion's miracle 3-pointer at the end of the first overtime period, ninth-seeded Holy Cross upset top-seeded Bucknell 77-72 in double overtime in the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinal round on March 3 at Sojka Pavilion. The Crusaders then went on to defeat Army and Lehigh to claim the title.
• Bucknell thought it had the game one at the end of the first overtime period. After Zach Thomas hit two clutch free throws to put Bucknell up 65-62 with nine seconds left, Anthony Thompson air-balled a 3-point try at the other end. Champion caught the ball out of the air, ran to the left corner in front of his own bench, and somehow swished a contested, fall-away 3-pointer as time expired.
• Holy Cross never trailed in the second overtime period. Malachi Alexander, who led all scorers with 20 points, scored the first four points, and Karl Charles later hit a dagger 3-pointer with 25 seconds to go that stretched a three-point lead up to six. Thomas answered with a trey for Bucknell, but Alexander's two free throws with 15 seconds left sealed it.
• Bucknell had three players finish with double-doubles, led by 19 points and 10 rebounds from Thomas. Chris Hass tallied 14 points and a career-high 11 rebounds, and Nana Foulland tallied 10 points and 10 boards. Ryan Frazier also scored in double figures with 12, and Stephen Brown had four points, six rebounds and eight assists.
• Bucknell defeated Holy Cross by 27 and 25 points in the two regular-season meetings. The Bison won 98-71 in Lewisburg by torching the Crusaders' 1-3-1 zone for 16 3-pointers in 25 attempts, and then Foulland's 22-point performance fueled a big night on the interior in the game in Worcester. Neither of those options worked well in this one, as Bucknell was ice-cold from long range and also struggled to get the ball into the paint. The Bison settled for 39 3-point attempts — a new school record — among its 65 shots from the field against the Holy Cross zone. They made 10 to finish at 25.6% from the arc and 33.8% shooting overall.
• Thomas was the one Bison on target from long range, hitting 4 of 6 including a big one with 43 seconds left in regulation that gave his team a 53-52 lead. Champion hit 1 of 2 at the foul line to tie the game with 0:29 left. Bucknell played for a final shot, but Hass' baseline jumper was off the mark, sending these two teams to overtime for the second straight year in the Patriot League quarterfinals.
• Bucknell finished with 21 offensive rebounds and a 51-38 overall rebounding edge, but the Bison had 17 turnovers compared to just nine for Holy Cross.
Team Numbers Worth Noting
• Bucknell's average victory margin this season is 17.2 points per game, and its average loss margin is 9.5 points per game.
• Bucknell ranks 55th nationally (out of 346 teams) in field-goal percentage (.466) and 44th in scoring offense (78.9).
• Bucknell is attempting to average 80 points in a season for the seventh time in program history. The last time the Bison finished a season with a scoring average better than 80 was 1993-94 (83.1). The team record is 83.3 in 1987-88. Bucknell's current scoring average of 79.2 would eighth all-time.
• Whether it is a result of a more up-tempo offense or the reduction to the 30-second shot clock, Bucknell is playing at a much faster pace this season. Bucknell's first 28 games have seen an average of 73.1 possessions per game, compared to 65.1 for the full season in 2014-15. The Bison are averaging an efficient 1.08 points per possession so far.
• Bucknell last season averaged 4.1 steals per game to rank last (10th) in the Patriot League in that category. This season the Bison rank second in the league in steals at 6.6 per game.
• Only five teams have shot 50% or better from the field against Bucknell this season — North Carolina State (.544), Princeton (.545), American (.550), Lehigh (.526) and Colgate (.600).
• Bucknell has had 11 different players score 10 or more points and six different players score 20 or more in a game this season. Eight different players have led the team in scoring this year.
• The Bison have hit 10 or more 3-pointers in five of their last six games.
• Bucknell has a +53 rebounding margin in its last five contests.
Individual Numbers Worth Noting
• Bucknell plus-minus leaders: Chris Hass +148, Stephen Brown +112, D.J. MacLeay +109, Nana Foulland +102, Ryan Frazier +92. All but one player on the roster has a positive or even +/- for the season.
• Dom Hoffman entered the season with one career made 3-pointer in five attempts. He has tried 58 shots from beyond the arc this season, making 22 (.379). Hoffman had hit a trey in six straight games (9-18 in that span) before going 0-for-3 against Holy Cross last time out.
• Hoffman also has 18 assists in his last five games.
• Point guard Stephen Brown has five or more assists in 17 of the 30 contests this season, including a pair of 10-assist games. Brown has assisted on 33.9% of the field goals made while he is on the floor.
• In Patriot League games, Brown averaged 11.1 ppg on 67-for-119 (.563) shooting from the field, 10-for-24 (.417) from the 3-point arc, 56-for-68 (.824) from the foul line, and he had 98 assists and 28 steals while committing just 34 turnovers and 30 fouls.
• Brown has improved his free-throw shooting considerably thus far. Last year he shot just 47.5% from the line, but this year he ranks second in the Patriot League at 83.2%. Chris Hass leads the league in free-throw percentage (.832, percentage points ahead of Brown), giving Bucknell the top two foul shooters in the league.
• D.J. MacLeay leads the Bison regulars in rebounds per 40 minutes (11.9), and he is now shooting 63.5% from the field this season and 66.7% in Patriot League games. He is 43-for-62 (.694) from the field in his last 16 games, and he produced his career scoring high with 15 against Lafayette on Jan. 25. If MacLeay had enough attempts to qualify, he would rank No. 11 nationally in field-goal percentage.
• Hass has shot 38.0% from 3-point range on the road this season, but just 26.6% at home. Has averages 18.6 points per game away from home.
Who's Got Next?
• If Bucknell defeats Monmouth, it would travel to either No. 4 George Washington or No. 5 Hofstra at a date and time to be determined.
