Men's Basketball Travels to Lafayette Saturday

What: Bucknell (13-8, 7-2 PL) at Lafayette (5-15, 2-7 PL)
Where: Kirby Sports Center, Easton, Pa.
When: Saturday, Feb. 2, 2 p.m.
TV: Lafayette Sports Network
Internet: Patriot League Network
Local Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 FM WEGH)
Listen Live: BucknellBison.com and Eagle107.com
Live Stats: GoLeopards.com

• COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Probable Starters
G: Jimmy Sotos (9.1 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 6.0 apg) or Nate Jones (2.6 ppg, 0.8 rpg, 0.6 apg)
G: Kimbal Mackenzie (15.6 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 3.2 apg)
G: Avi Toomer (9.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.5 apg)
F: Bruce Moore (10.0 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 0.7 apg)
C: Nate Sestina (15.4 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 1.1 apg)

With a Win over Lafayette, Bucknell Would ...

... improve to 14-8 overall and 8-2 in the Patriot League.
... maintain at least a share of first place in the Patriot League.
... improve to 6-4 in true road games and 8-5 in road/neutral games this season.
... improve to 289-119 all-time in Patriot League play and 114-28 in the PL over the last nine seasons.
... defeat the Leopards for the seventh straight time, and for the fourth straight year in Easton.

Headlines

Bucknell hit the halfway mark of Patriot League play with a 7-2 record after Wednesday night's 69-57 home victory over American. That left the Bison in a first-place tie with Lehigh, which squeezed past Lafayette in overtime later in the evening. Army, which began the day in a three-way tie for the lead, dropped back to third place after a loss at Colgate.
The Bison are now 32-5 in the month of January under head coach Nathan Davis, including this year's 7-2 mark.
Bucknell holds at least a share of first place in the Patriot League on Feb. 1 for the fifth straight year and ninth time in the last 10 years.
Bucknell's season-best five-game winning streak came to an end last Saturday at American. The Bison shot just 33.3% from the field in D.C. and 37.9% on Wednesday against Navy. This is the first time all season that Bucknell has shot under 40% in back-to-back games, and the team is 16-for-61 (.262) from the 3-point arc in those two contests.
Senior Kimbal Mackenzie now has 1,076 career points, and he needs just eight to tie his current assistant coach John Griffin for the No. 34 spot on Bucknell's all-time scoring list.
Bucknell has had a knack for coming from behind this season. The Bison have won a game after trailing by 10 or more points six different times this season, including each of their first three Patriot League wins.
Close games have also been the norm for the Bison. Five of Bucknell's seven Patriot League wins, and seven of its 13 overall victories, have been decided by three points or fewer. Nine of the team's 21 games have been decided by three points or fewer, and the Bison are 7-2 in those games.
Nate Sestina has lived up to his Preseason All-Patriot League billing thus far. The Bison are 13-6 this season with Sestina in the lineup — he missed the Fairfield and Canisius games with an injury — and he is averaging 15.4 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Sestina, who served as the backup center behind former Patriot League Player of the Year Nana Foulland for the last three seasons, was named to the All-Tournament Team at the Diamond Head Classic. Sestina was the Patriot League Player of the Week on Jan. 7 after averaging 24.5 points and 10.5 rebounds against Army and Boston University. His 27 points against the Terriers was a career high, until he surpassed it with 32 on perfect 11-for-11 shooting against Holy Cross.
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 — Nate Sestina — was a Preseason All-Patriot League selection.
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.
Lafayette, the only Patriot League team that the Bison have yet to play this season, come into Saturday's game looking to shake a three-game losing streak. The Leopards have a number of close losses this season, including three overtime setbacks. The most recent of those came on Wednesday, when arch-rival Lehigh prevailed 93-86 in OT. Justin Jaworski and Alex Petrie — two of the Patriot League's best long-range shooters — lead the team in scoring at 14.1 points per game. Jaworski ranks fourth nationally in 3-point field goal percentage at 48.0%, and he has been even better (57.1%) in Patriot League games, where he is averaging 15.9 ppg. The Bison will want to avoid putting the Leopards on the free-throw line, where they rank fifth among all Division I teams at 78.3%.

How to Get the Game
uThe Bucknell-Lafayette game will be streamed live on the Patriot League Network at PatriotLeague.tv. The game will also be televised regionally on RCN-4 and 1004 HD in the Lehigh Valley, WBPH-60 HD in Eastern Pennsylvania and Western New Jersey, and RCN-8 and 608 HD in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Gary Laubach and John Leone have the call for the Lafayette Sports Network.
uThe 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.
uThe audio feed is available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
uLive statistics can be accessed at GoLeopards.com.
uFollow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

Kimbal Mackenzie and Avi Toomer scored 14 points apiece and combined for six of Bucknell's eight made 3-pointers to lead the Bison to a 69-57 home victory over Navy Wednesday evening at Sojka Pavilion.
Bucknell used a 9-0 run in the first half to open up a double-figure lead and never let the Mids draw closer than eight the rest of the way.
The Bison led 36-21 at halftime and stretched their lead to as many as 18 points in the second half, and they limited Navy to 31.7% shooting on the night (3-22 from 3-point range).
On a night when Bucknell played without injured point guard Jimmy Sotos, and three other starters missed most of the first half with foul trouble, the Bison bench played a big role in the victory. The reserves contributed 20 of the team's 36 first-half points, and they accounted for 26 points, 18 rebounds and six assists on the night. All 10 Bucknell players who saw action in the game scored a point.
Walter Ellis and Paul Newman each had a team-high seven rebounds in 20-plus minutes off the bench. Newman also had eight points and three blocked shots. John Meeks added nine points and Ben Robertson five, including his first 3-pointer of the season.
Bucknell did not have its best shooting night either, finishing at 37.9% overall and 8-for-34 from the arc, but the Bison did hit 14 of 24 2-point attempts and 17 of 24 from the free-throw line.
Navy led only once in the game at 2-0.
The win was Bucknell's 15th in a row at home against Patriot League competition, including a 5-0 mark this season. The Bison have now won 11 straight and 19 of the last 20 against Navy.

Bucknell vs. Lafayette

Bucknell and Lafayette have met 165 times previously, making the Leopards Bucknell's second most-played opponent (the Bison have played Lehigh 171 times). Since the series began in 1915, Lafayette leads 89-76.
Since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, however, Bucknell has won 47 of 64 meetings.
Lafayette won 33 of the first 37 meetings and led the series 60-14 at one point.
Bucknell had been 15-0 all-time against Lafayette in Sojka Pavilion until the Leopards posted their first win there in 2013-14. The Bison are now 19-2 against Lafayette in Sojka Pavilion and 27-5 against the Leopards in Lewisburg going back to the Patriot League's first season.
The Bison and Leopards have met in a conference championship game four times, with Bucknell winning three of those. The Bison defeated Lafayette 71-65 in the 1989 East Coast Conference final in Towson, Md., and they also won Patriot League championship games in Sojka Pavilion in 2011 (72-57) and 2013 (64-56). Lafayette claimed the 1999 Patriot League title with a 67-63 win over the Bison in Easton.
Bucknell has won the last six in the series, including sweeps in each of the last three seasons. Lafayette's last win over the Bison was an 80-74 verdict in the 2015 Patriot League semifinals.
Last season, Stephen Brown hit the tiebreaking 3-pointer with 1:17 remaining in overtime — the shot put him over 1,000 points for his career — and Bucknell escaped Easton with an 80-75 win. Brown finished with 19 points, 15 coming after halftime, to help the Bison erase a double-digit deficit. Alex Petrie scored 26 points for Lafayette, including a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that sent the game to overtime. In the rematch at Sojka Pavilion, Bucknell prevailed 74-59 behind 20 points from Zach Thomas. The Bison forced 17 turnovers while committing only seven. Petrie had another big night against the Bison, tallying 19 points.

Numbers Worth Noting

When Nate Sestina went 11-for-11 against Holy Cross, he raised his career field-goal percentage from .529 to .540. Sestina set the Bucknell single-game record and tied the Patriot League mark on his way to a career-high 32 points. He made his lone 3-point field goal attempt and all 10 of his two-point field goals, while also making nine out of 10 free throw attempts. Donald Brown held the previous Bucknell mark of made field goals in a game without a miss, making all 10 of his shots against Lehigh, exactly 15 years earlier, Jan. 14, 2004.

NCAA LEADERS, MOST FIELD GOALS WITHOUT A MISS IN 2018-19
Levi Bradley (Northern Illinois) 13   11/25 vs. Oakland
Raasean Davis (North Carolina Central 12   1/14 vs. Delaware State
Connor MacDougall (Utah Valley) 12   12/19 vs. Idaho State
Darius Brown II (Cal-State Northridge)   12   11/27 vs. Washington State
Xavier Hill-Mais (Oakland) 12   11/19 vs. Defiance
Nate Sestina (Bucknell) 11   1/14 vs. Holy Cross
Obi Toppin (Dayton) 11   12/19 vs. Western Michigan
Matt Wilson (Army) 11   11/17 vs. UMass-Lowell

Sestina's 32 points tied the Sojka Pavilion record for points scored by a Bison player, matching the output by Chris Hass, on March 5, 2015, against Holy Cross, and Zach Thomas, on Jan. 31, 2018, against Army. Sestina also had seven rebounds in the victory.
Sestina is now hitting on 88.5% of his free-throw attempts this season, including a Patriot League-best 91.7% in conference play. Sestina ranks 21st nationally in free-throw percentage and No. 1 among all players 6'9" or taller.

NCAA LEADERS, FREE-THROW PERCENTAGE AMONG PLAYERS 6-9 OR TALLER
1. Nate Sestina (Bucknell) 6-9   .885
2. Nick Mayo (Eastern Kentucky) 6-9   .877
3. Luke Garza (Iowa) 6-11   .870
4. Filip Petrusev (Gonzaga) 6-11   .836
5. Mike Daum (South Dakota State)   6-9   .815

After getting dominated on the glass in back-to-back games against Boston University and Colgate earlier this month, the Bison have made a concerted effort to improve their rebounding margin. In the six games since then, Bucknell is +19 on the boards.
Junior Bruce Moore has been a big key to that rebounding improvement. He posted a career-high 15 rebounds against American on Jan. 12, starting a six-game stretch where he is averaging 8.3 boards per game. Moore has upped his season rebounding average from 3.3 to 4.8 per game. Moore is also averaging 10.5 points per game over the same five-game stretch.
Bucknell had lost 24 straight games dating back five years when the opponent shot 50% or better from the field. The Bison broke that streak in the Jan. 14 home win over Holy Cross, when the Crusaders hit on an even 50%, and now Bucknell has won two straight in that circumstance after Lehigh shot 51.7% on Jan. 19.
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 16 drawn charges this season.
Sophomore Jimmy Sotos struggled in the turnover category early in the season, but over his last 13 games, he has 84 assists with only 28 turnovers. Sotos averages 6.7 assists per game in Bucknell's victories and 4.9 in the losses.
As a team, the Bison rank 33rd nationally in assists per made field goal (.593).
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 third in the league with 1.4 blocks per game, even though he plays just 14.7 minutes per game.
Sophomore John Meeks has provided a big lift since returning from injury at Ohio State on Dec. 15. In 14 games since coming back, Meeks has totaled 75 points on 51.7% shooting and 26 rebounds. He averages 18.6 ppg per 40 minutes.
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.
Bucknell's non-conference schedule was ranked as the 77th-hardest in the nation, according to statistical analyst Ken Pomeroy. Bucknell's 12 non-league foes combined for a 260-141 (.648) overall record and a 144-70 (.673) mark within their respective leagues last year. Nine of the 12 teams won at least 20 games, and 10 of the 12 had winning records.
Bucknell went 3-0 against the Atlantic 10 this season. The Bison averaged 88 points per game in wins over St. Bonaventure, La Salle and Rhode Island.
Mackenzie has played 170 of a possible 180 minutes in the second halves of Patriot League games thus far.

Who's Got Next?

The Bison are back on the road on Wednesday, visiting Loyola at 7 p.m. on the Patriot League Network.
The Bison and Greyhounds will be meeting for the second time in two weeks. Bucknell used three Jimmy Sotos free throws in the final seconds to beat Loyola 71-68 at Sojka Pavilion on Jan. 23.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Stephen Brown

Walter Ellis

Nana Foulland

Nate Jones

Kimbal Mackenzie

John Meeks

Bruce Moore

Paul Newman

Ben Robertson

Nate Sestina

Jimmy Sotos

Zach Thomas

Avi Toomer