Bison Embark on Longest Single Road Trip in School History, Face Saint Mary's Wednesday

What: Bucknell (4-4) at Saint Mary's (7-5)
Where: McKeon Pavilion, Moraga, Calif.
When: Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2018, 10 p.m. ET (7 p.m. PT)
Webcast: WCC Network ($)
Local Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 FM WEGH)
Listen Live: BucknellBison.com and Eagle107.com
Live Stats: SMCGaels.com

• COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Probable Starters
G: Kimbal Mackenzie (15.8 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 3.6 apg)
G: Matt O'Reilly (0.0 ppg, 0.0 rpg, 0.0 apg)
G: Avi Toomer (10.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 1.9 apg)
F: Bruce Moore (8.6 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 0.9 apg)
C: Nate Sestina (15.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 0.7 apg)

With a Win over Saint Mary's, Bucknell Would ...

... improve to 5-4 overall and 4-1 on the road.
... improve to 1-1 all-time against Saint Mary's.
... improve to 2-2 all-time against members of the West Coast Conference.
... improve to 73-37 under head coach Nathan Davis.

Headlines

Bucknell embarks on the longest single road trip in school history this week, when it visits Saint Mary's on Wednesday night in Moraga, Calif., and then continues on to Honolulu for the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic later in the week.
The Bison came out of an 11-day break for final exams with a strong effort at No. 15/14 Ohio State on Saturday. Bucknell could not connect on a last-second 3-point attempt and fell 73-71 at Value City Arena.
The Saint Mary's game will be a homecoming for Bucknell senior Matt O'Reilly, who is a native of Moraga. O'Reilly attended Campolindo High School but played his senior season of high school basketball with Prolific Prep Academy out of Napa, Calif. O'Reilly's minutes have been severely limited by a back injury this season, but he is expected to get his first collegiate start against Saint Mary's and play a few minutes in front of his hometown friends and family.
The Bison have had balanced scoring thus far, with seven players averaging at least 7.0 ppg. Bucknell had a different leading scorer in five straight games during one recent stretch, and seven players have produced at least one double-digit scoring game this season.
Bucknell benefitted from the return of sophomore forward John Meeks against Ohio State. Meeks was projected to get significant minutes this season, but he missed the first seven games of the season due to injury. He played 16 minutes against the Buckeyes and tallied seven points, three rebounds, and a key steal in the closing seconds that gave the Bison a shot to win the game.
Senior center Nate Sestina has lived up to his Preseason All-Patriot League billing thus far. The Bison are 4-2 this season with Sestina in the lineup — he missed the Fairfield and Canisius games with an injury — and he leads the team in scoring (15.8) and rebounding (8.0). Sestina, who served as the backup center behind former Patriot League Player of the Year Nana Foulland for the last three seasons, is shooting 55.2% from the field, 42.1% from the 3-point arc, and 82.1% from the foul line in his first year as a starter. He had a career-high 24 points at La Salle just before the exam break.
Junior wing Avi Toomer has begun to heat up as well. Toomer scored a career-high 17 points in the win over Monmouth, and then he repeated that total at La Salle before tallying 13 points at Ohio State. In the last three games, Toomer is averaging 15.7 ppg. He is 16-for-30 from the field and 10-for-16 from the arc, along with 10 assists and eight steals in that span.
Bucknell is looking to continue its run of success following the graduation of one of its all-time great senior classes. The trio of point guard Stephen Brown, forward Zach Thomas and center Nana Foulland were all First Team All-Patriot League selections last year, and they accounted for 4,801 career points. Despite the heavy graduation hit, four of Bucknell's five opening-night starters managed to start at least 10 games last season. And the only one that didn't — senior center Nate Sestina — was a Preseason All-Patriot League selection.
Bucknell has another difficult non-conference schedule this season. Not including the field at the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic, Bucknell's nine non-league foes combined for a 193-108 (.641) overall record and a 112-48 (.700) mark within their respective leagues last year. Six of the nine teams won at least 21 games, and seven of the nine had winning records. And then Bucknell's first-round opponent in Hawaii will be Rhode Island, which went 26-8 overall and 15-3 in the A-10 last season.
Last season, Bucknell finished 25-10 overall and 16-2 in the Patriot League. The Bison swept Loyola, Boston University and Colgate — with the latter two wins coming by a combined 60 points — to win the Patriot League Tournament crown. Bucknell's eighth NCAA Tournament appearance resulted in a narrow 82-78 first-round loss to third-seeded Michigan State in Detroit.
The Bison have a tall order against West Coast Conference power Saint Mary's, which is 172-22 (.887) at home over the last eight seasons. The Gaels went 30-6 last season, falling to Utah in the NIT quarterfinals after just missing out on an NCAA at-large bid. Similar to Bucknell, the Gaels suffered a big graduation hit, losing two-thirds of its scoring from last season. But also similar to the Bison, Saint Mary's is off to a good start with players in new roles. The Gaels won their first three games of the season, lost four straight, then won four in a row before dropping a close 78-74 decision to LSU in Las Vegas on Saturday night. Quick guard Jordan Ford leads the team in scoring at 22.4 ppg, with Malik Fitts (14.6) and Jordan Hunter (10.7) also scoring in double figures. Saint Mary's shoots 49.5% as a team and 38.8% from the 3-point line.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Saint Mary's game will stream live on the West Coast Conference's digital network at TheW.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.
Live statistics can be accessed via SMCGaels.com.
The audio feed is available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Numbers Worth Noting

After committing a season-high 19 turnovers against La Salle just before the final exam break, the Bison posted a season-low eight turnovers against Ohio State, which is regarded as one of the top defensive teams in the nation thus far. The Bison handled the ball well, as four of the eight turnovers came on moving screen violations and another on an offensive charging foul.
Bucknell has now made double-digit 3-pointers in four straight games and 5 of 8 this year. This is the first time the Bison have hit 10+ treys in four straight games since the start of last season, when they did so in the first five games of the year. In each of the last four games, at least six different players have connected on a 3-pointer.
The Bison are 3-1 on the road and 1-3 at home this season, and the offensive numbers tell the story. Away from home, Bucknell is averaging 80.0 points per game and shooting 47.2 FG%/38.5 3FG%/71.2 FT%. At home, the Bison score 68.5 ppg while shooting 42.9%/34.9%/62.2%.
On Nov. 28, Bucknell allowed a season-high 96 points to Northeastern in an 18-point home loss. In the three games since then, the Bison have ramped up the defense. Just three days after the Northeastern loss, Bucknell conceded only 43 points in a rout of Monmouth. Then they held La Salle to 33.8% shooting for the game and Ohio State to 37.0% in the second half.
The 53-point defensive improvement between the Northeastern and Monmouth games was two shy of the school record. Bucknell has improved defensively by 55 points on three different occasions in its 124-year history, most recently in 2000-01. That season, the Bison followed a 105-61 loss to Iona with a 64-50 win over Rider. It also happened in 1973-74 (110-53 loss to Syracuse followed by a 56-55 win over Lehigh) and 1947-48 (99-71 loss to Rhode Island backed up by a 55-44 win over Lehigh).

Bucknell Defense Last 3 Games
Opponent PPG   65.0
Opponent FG%   .382
Opponent 3FG%   .288
Opponent TO/g   16.3
Bucknell STL/g   8.0

Senior Kimbal Mackenzie has a knack for taking charges. He drew four offensive fouls in the La Salle game on Dec. 4, and he has a team-high nine drawn charges in eight games this season.
Sophomore Paul Newman has played well in the first extended action of his career, and he has emerged as one of the Patriot League's top shot-blockers. Newman ranks second in the league with 2.0 blocks per game, even though he plays just 19.9 minutes per game.
Junior Ben Robertson has given the Bison quality minutes off the bench. Robertson is averaging a career-high 14.0 minutes per game and is shooting 68.8% (11-16) from the field.
Bucknell's shot chart from the La Salle game was a statistical analyst's dream. In a game in which the Bison scored 92 points, all 29 made field goals were either dunks (6), layups (12), or 3-pointers (11). In fact, Bucknell did not attempt a 2-point shot outside the paint all night.

Last Time Out

Bucknell gave No. 15/14 Ohio State all it could handle on Saturday afternoon, but two contested 3-pointers would not drop in the final seconds, and the Buckeyes prevailed 73-71 before 14,241 at Value City Arena.
Kimbal Mackenzie and Avi Toomer led four Bison in double figures with 13 points, while Kaleb Wesson tallied 22 points and 10 rebounds to pace the Buckeyes.
Bucknell trailed 37-25 with four minutes left in the first half, but then over the next seven minutes surrounding halftime, the Bison outscored Ohio State 24-4 and took an eight-point lead in the early stages of the second half.
After shooting 51.7% in the first half, including nine 3-pointers in 17 attempts, Bucknell endured a 1-for-15 drought as Ohio State climbed back into the game. Keyshaun Woods scored eight points in a 10-0 Buckeyes run to give them the lead back, and later in the half, Ohio State nudged the margin back to 11 at 69-58.
But the Bison were stout defensively in the late stages, holding Ohio State without a field goal in the final 5:30. Toomer's third trey of the day cut Bucknell's deficit to 73-71. Bucknell then poked the ball loose on the inbounds, and John Meeks dove on the loose ball and called timeout. The Bison went for three and the win, but Ohio State defended it well. Bruce Moore's off-balance attempt hit the front iron, Jimmy Sotos tracked down the loose ball on the right wing, but his desperation attempt at the buzzer fell short.
Sotos finished with 12 points, seven rebounds and five assists for the Bison, and Nate Sestina scored 10 points despite being limited to 13 minutes due to foul trouble.
Bucknell shot 41.8% for the game, hitting on 12 of 30 shots from beyond the arc. The Bison led 40-39 at the half even though Ohio State shot 58.6% from the floor.

Bucknell vs. Saint Mary's

This will be just the second all-time meeting between the Bison and Gaels, and the first since Nov. 25, 1995.
Bucknell opened that season with games on back-to-back nights in the Bay Area. The Bison beat San Francisco in overtime in the first game, but could not keep it going the following day with an 84-66 loss to Saint Mary's.
The Bison trailed by just two at 35-33 at halftime of that game, but they wore down in the second half and were outscored 49-33 over the final 20 minutes. Sekou Hamer led Bucknell with 14 points, while A.J. Collins had 24 for Saint Mary's.

Bucknell vs. the WCC

Bucknell has seen limited action against the West Coast Conference through the years. The Bison are 1-2 against the current members of the WCC, with a win over San Francisco and losses to Saint Mary's and Santa Clara.
The Santa Clara game was the most recent matchup against a WCC foe, and it was a rare loss for the Bison in the historic 2005-06 season. The Bison fell 77-68 in the championship game of the Cable Car Classic, but they went on to finish 27-5 that season, including a win over Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament.
Bucknell's most recent game in the state of California was a 72-68 loss at Stanford in the 2013-14 season opener.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell will continue even farther west to play in the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic Dec. 22, 23 and 25. It will be Bucknell's very first trip to Hawai'i. The Bison match up with Rhode Island in the first round on Dec. 22.

Bison Embark on Longest Single Road Trip in School History, Face Saint Mary's Wednesday

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Stephen Brown

Nana Foulland

Kimbal Mackenzie

John Meeks

Bruce Moore

Paul Newman

Matt O'Reilly

Ben Robertson

Nate Sestina

Jimmy Sotos

Zach Thomas

Avi Toomer

Bison Embark on Longest Single Road Trip in School History, Face Saint Mary's Wednesday

Related News

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Stephen Brown

Nana Foulland

Kimbal Mackenzie

John Meeks

Bruce Moore

Paul Newman

Matt O'Reilly

Ben Robertson

Nate Sestina

Jimmy Sotos

Zach Thomas

Avi Toomer

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