Men's Basketball Wraps Busy First Semester with Home Game vs. Albany Saturday Night

Saturday, December 7

Lewisburg, Pa.

7 p.m.

Bucknell University

Albany

Buy Tickets

Photo by: Marc Hagemeier

Men's Basketball Wraps Busy First Semester with Home Game vs. Albany Saturday Night

12/6/2019 1:30:00 PM | Men's Basketball

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Bucknell men's basketball team played 10 games in the first month of the season -- only Florida Gulf Coast, Fort Wayne and South Dakota State have played more thus far with 11 each -- and the Bison have one more contest on tap before breaking for two weeks for final exams. Saturday night the Bison host the Albany Great Danes, who are typically one of the top teams in the America East Conference along with Vermont. Albany is 5-4 on the season after a rare down year in 2018-19, but prior to that the Great Danes posted 19 or more wins in seven straight seasons and went to five NCAA Tournaments between 2006-15.

The Bison are looking end the first semester on a high note after dropping three straight six of their last seven on the heels of a 2-1 start. Bucknell was locked up in a two-point game at the half against a very good Rider team on Tuesday, but the Broncs pulled away in the second half and won 89-69.

Following Saturday's game, the Bison have only two more non-conference games left on the schedule: Dec. 21 at Siena and Dec. 28 at La Salle. The next home game on Jan. 2, 2020 will also be the team's Patriot League opener against Army West Point.

Here is more info on Saturday's game vs. Albany:

What: Albany (5-3) at Bucknell (3-7)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa. | BUY TICKETS
When: Saturday, Dec. 6, 7 p.m.
Webcast: Patriot League Network
Local Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 FM WEGH)
Listen Live: BucknellBison.com and Eagle107.com
Live Stats: BucknellBison.com

COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Happenings:

At halftime, the 2019 MAWPC Champion Bucknell men's water polo team will be honored. The Bison, ranked 10th nationally, advanced to the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals this week before a hard-fought 15-9 loss to defending national champion USC.

Bucknell Probable Starters
G: Jimmy Sotos (11.4 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 4.4 apg)
G: Andrew Funk (10.6 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 1.3 apg)
G: Avi Toomer (13.0 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 1.2 apg)
F: Bruce Moore (11.8 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 0.9 apg)
C: Malachi Rhodes (0.8 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 0.3 bpg)

With a Win over Albany, Bucknell Would ...

... snap a three-game losing streak and avoid its first four-game losing streak since the start of the 2017-18 season.
... defeat the Great Danes for the fourth straight time and improve to 7-2 all-time against them.
... improve to 2-2 at home this season and 184-58 all-time at Sojka Pavilion.
... give head coach Nathan Davis his 93rd win as Bucknell's head coach.

Headlines

It's been a busy stretch for Bucknell, with 10 games in the first 28 days of the season, and now the Bison will have one more contest before taking two weeks off for final exams. Bucknell and Albany get together Saturday night at Sojka Pavilion in the first meeting between the teams in five years.
The Bison will have a tough matchup against a 5-4 Albany team that holds opponents to 39.5% shooting and 64.0 points per game. The Great Danes appear to be on the rebound after a rare losing season in 2018-19 that came on the heels of four straight 20-win campaigns.
The Bison are looking to break out of a rough spell. After falling at Rider on Tuesday, Bucknell has dropped six of its last seven after a 2-1 start.
The Bison have played shorthanded in the frontcourt in recent games, as center Paul Newman has missed the last two games and forward John Meeks sat out the Rider game due to injury.
Bucknell currently has five players averaging at least 10 points per game, led by Avi Toomer at 13.0 ppg. He is followed by Bruce Moore (11.8), Jimmy Sotos (11.4), Andrew Funk (10.6) and Meeks (10.3). All five have led the team in scoring at least once this season.
Bucknell was picked second to Colgate in the Patriot League preseason poll. Those two teams played in the 2019 Patriot League Tournament final, with the Raiders prevailing 94-80 to thwart Bucknell's hopes of a third straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Bucknell and Colgate shared the 2019 Patriot League regular-season title with 13-5 conference records. It was Bucknell's fifth straight PL regular-season crown and eighth in the last nine years. The run of five regular-season titles in a row is the second-longest current streak in the nation, behind only Gonzaga (7).
Albany saw its three-game winning streak come to an end in a 61-52 home loss to Yale on Wednesday. That is one of two common opponents thus far, as the Great Danes beat Canisius 83-57 at home on Nov. 13 before the Bison lost to the Golden Griffins in Buffalo three days later. Albany has played two other Patriot League opponents, falling to Lehigh 74-70 in the season opener and beating American 68-64 on Nov. 30. Both of those games were played in Albany.
The Great Danes are led by sharpshooting guard Cameron Healy, who averages 17.9 ppg. Healy has 26 3-pointers in nine games and shoots 40% from the arc and 93.5% from the foul line. Ahmad Clark (13.9) is the team's other double-digit scorer, and Malachi De Sousa is the top rebounder at 5.9 per game.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Albany game will stream free of charge on the Patriot League Network at PatriotLeague.tv.
The game can be heard in the Susquehanna Valley on the radio on Eagle 107 (WEGH 107.3 FM). Doug Birdsong handles the play-by-play duties, and Bucknell Athletics Hall-of-Famer Pat Flannery '80 will provide color commentary. The pregame show begins 30 minutes before tip-off.
Live statistics can be accessed at BucknellBison.com.
The audio feed is available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com and Eagle107.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

Dimencio Vaughn led six Rider players in double figures with 19 points, and the Broncs broke open a two-point game at the half by shooting 58% in the second stanza on the way to an 89-69 win over shorthanded Bucknell on Tuesday night at Alumni Gym.
Bruce Moore scored a career-high 20 points, Avi Toomer added 18, and Jimmy Sotos handed out 10 assists for the Bison.
Rider, the preseason No. 2 pick in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, shot 52.5% overall in its 2019-20 home opener and improved to 5-2 on the season. Tyere Marshall, who had 28 points and 20 rebounds against Massachusetts earlier in the season, had 14 and 13 in this one. Stevie Jordan, Wily Nunez Jr. and Frederick Scott also had 14 points and Christian Ings 10.
Moore hit 12 of 14 from the free-throw line – both career highs – and hit the 20-point mark for the first time in his career.
Toomer went 4-for-5 from the 3-point arc on the way to his 18.
Andrew Funk just missed a double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds.
Sotos recorded double-digit assists for the third time in his career.
Rider beat the first-half buzzer with a 3-point play to go up 37-35 at intermission, and then the Broncs logged the first six of the second half to take their largest lead of eight points. Bucknell was within seven after a Kahliel Spear layup with 13:39 to go, but Rider stretched it out with a 15-1 run over a four-minute span.
The Bison cut a 21-point deficit to 11 with a 10-0 run, ignited by an Alex Timmerman 3-pointer. Funk's free throw brought the Bison within 75-64 with 4:20 still to play, but Rider held Bucknell to only one more field goal and ran the margin back out to 23 with a 14-2 run.

Bucknell vs. Albany Series History

This is the ninth all-time meeting between the Bison and Great Danes, with Bucknell holding a 6-2 lead in a series that dates back to the 1999-2000 season.
Bucknell won the very first meeting 72-61 on Feb. 23, 2000 in Davis Gym. The Bison are 3-1 against Albany at home and 2-0 at Sojka Pavilion.
The most recent meeting came on Dec. 8, 2014 at Sojka, and the Bison prevailed 61-58 behind 26 points from Chris Hass and 12 points from then-freshman Nana Foulland. Sam Rowley had 17 points and nine rebounds for Albany.
Albany's wins came in 2001-02 (51-50) and 2006-07 (55-49).

Bucknell vs. The America East

Bucknell does not have a long history with the America East Conference, but has had some success. The Bison are 21-11 against the nine teams that currently comprise the America East: 6-2 vs. Albany, 6-2 vs. UMBC, 3-1 vs. Binghamton, 2-2 vs. Maine, 2-3 vs. Vermont, 1-0 vs. Stony Brook, and 1-1 vs. Hartford. Bucknell has never played New Hampshire or UMass-Lowell.
This will be Bucknell's second game against an America East foe this season. The Bison dropped a 66-63 verdict to Vermont on Nov. 10.

Notable Numbers

The Bison will be looking to get back to their defensive form from the first three games of the season, when they went 2-1 with wins over Fairfield and Hofstra and a three-point loss to a very good Vermont team.

Bucknell Defense First Three Games Bucknell Defense Last Seven Games
PPG Allowed 67.0 86.4
Opponent FG% .376 .537
Opponent 3FG% .214 .410

It has been feast or famine for the Bison from 3-point distance this season. They have shot 35% or better six times and 26% or worse four times. Bucknell endured a stretch of 25 straight missed threes from the first half of the Syracuse game into the second half of the Seattle game, but the Bison also had a run of seven straight makes (and 11 of 14) against Hofstra on Nov. 13.
Andrew Funk has committed only eight turnovers all season in 308 minutes played. He turns the ball over only 1.4 times per 100 team possessions and just 1.0 times per 40 minutes.
Funk has hit a 3-pointer in 16 of his last 18 games dating back to last season.
Avi Toomer has hit multiple 3-pointers in four straight games and is averaging 16.5 ppg over that span.
The Bison have had difficulty shutting down opponents' scoring runs this season. Bucknell foes have put together a run of at least 10 or more unanswered points in a row in eight of the 10 games thus far.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell will be off until Dec. 21 when it travels to Siena for a 6 p.m. game at the Times Union Center.
Bucknell's next home game will also be its Patriot League opener, Jan. 2 against Army West Point.