League-Leading Bison Put Five-Game Win Streak on the Line Saturday at Holy Cross

What: Bucknell (17-8, 11-2 PL) at Holy Cross (13-13, 4-9 PL)
Where: Hart Center, Worcester, Mass.
When: Saturday, Feb. 16, 12 p.m.
TV: NESN Plus
Internet: Patriot League Network
Local Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 FM WEGH)
Listen Live: BucknellBison.com and Eagle107.com
Live Stats: GoHolyCross.com

• COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Probable Starters
G: Jimmy Sotos (8.7 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 6.0 apg)
G: Kimbal Mackenzie (17.2 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 3.1 apg)
G: Avi Toomer (8.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 1.8 apg)
F: Bruce Moore (10.2 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 0.8 apg)
C: Nate Sestina (16.4 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 1.0 apg)

With a Win over Holy Cross, Bucknell Would ...

... improve to 18-8 overall and 12-2 in the Patriot League.
... win its season-high sixth straight game and 11th in the last 12.
... maintain at least a two-game lead in the Patriot League.
... improve to 8-4 on the road and 10-5 in road/neutral games this season.
... improve to 293-119 all-time in Patriot League play and 118-28 in the PL over the last nine seasons.
... beat the Crusaders for the sixth straight time.

Headlines

Bucknell won a critical swing game over Lehigh on Monday night to sweep the season series and take a two-game lead over the Mountain Hawks with five regular-season contests remaining.
The Bison have won five straight games, matching their longest winning streak of the season, with four of the five wins coming by double-digit margins. In Bucknell's previous five-game winning streak earlier in the conference season, the Bison compiled a +24 scoring margin. In this run, however, Bucknell's scoring margin is +70.
Bison seniors Kimbal Mackenzie and Nate Sestina have been sensational of late, particularly in the four games during the month of February, when the senior duo has combined for 186 points, or 53.6% of Bucknell's offense. Mackenzie has topped the 20-point mark in all four games, including a career-high 31 at Lafayette on Feb. 2, while Sestina has gone over 20 points in three of the four games while also averaging 8.8 rebounds per game.

LAST 4 GAMES PPG FG% 3FG%   FT%
Kimbal Mackenzie   25.5   .536   .520   .906
Nate Sestina 21.0   .714   .467   .778

Sestina is hoping for a reprise of his first game against Holy Cross this season. Back on Jan. 14 at Sojka Pavilion, Sestina scored a career-high 32 points on perfect 11-for-11 shooting from the field. He set a Bucknell record and tied the Patriot League record for most field goals without a miss in a game. In his career against the Crusaders, Sestina is 18-for-21 (.857) from the floor.
Bucknell has had a knack for coming from behind this season. The Bison have won a game after trailing by 10 or more points seven different times this season, including on four occasions in Patriot League play. The most recent comeback came on Monday against Lehigh, when Bucknell trailed by as many as 11 points in the first half. The Bison are 8-7 this season when trailing at halftime.
Head coach Nathan Davis is now in the top 10 in career winning percentage among all active Division I head coaches with at least three years of experience. At 226-80 (.739), Davis finds himself in some elite company.

ACTIVE HEAD COACH WINNING PERCENTAGE Pct. W L
1. Mark Few (Gonzaga) .823 558 120
2. Roy Williams (Kansas/North Carolina) .788   861 231
3. Rick Croy (Cal Baptist)   .788 145 39
4. Eric Musselman (Nevada) .776 104 30
5. John Calipari (UMass/Memphis/Kentucky) .773 698 205
6. Mike Kyrzyzewski (Army/Duke) .767 1121 340
7. Bill Self (Oral Roberts/Tulsa/Illinois/Kansas) .765 672 207
8. Chris Jans (Bowling Green/New Mexico St.)    .758 69 22
9. Sean Miller (Xavier/Arizona) .744 381 131
10. Nathan Davis (Randolph-Macon/Bucknell) .739    226 80
11. Chris Beard (McMurry/Angelo St./UALR/Texas Tech) .731 160 59
12. Steve Forbes (East Tennessee St.) .725 95 36
13. Dave Rose (BYU) .723 345 132
14. Ray Harper (KY Wesleyan/Oklahoma City/Western KY/Jacksonville St.) .723 394 151
15. Tom Izzo (Michigan State) .721 593 230

Nate Sestina has lived up to his Preseason All-Patriot League billing thus far. The Bison are 17-6 this season with Sestina in the lineup — he missed the Fairfield and Canisius games with an injury — and he is averaging 16.4 points and 7.8 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 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.
Holy Cross is coming off a 74-70 home loss to Colgate on Wednesday, which dropped the Crusaders to 4-9 in Patriot League play. Jacob Grandison leads four Holy Cross players in double figures at 13.9 points per game, followed by Austin Butler (13.1), Jehyve Floyd (11.4) and Caleb Green (11.1). Floyd is one of the league's top big men, and he averages a league-best 2.2 blocked shots per game while shooting 67.0% from the field. Floyd also leads the team in assists with 3.6 per game out of Bill Carmody's Princeton-style offense. Holy Cross typically plays low-scoring affairs. The Crusaders lead the league in scoring defense at 68.0 points per game, but they rank ninth in scoring offense at 67.0 ppg.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Holy Cross game will be televised on NESN Plus and streamed 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), with Doug Birdsong calling the action. The pregame show begins 30 minutes before tip-off.
The audio feed is available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
Live statistics can be accessed at GoHolyCross.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

Kimbal Mackenzie scored a game-high 27 points, topping the 20-point mark for the fourth consecutive contest, to lead first-place Bucknell to an 87-75 victory over second-place Lehigh on Monday night at Sojka Pavilion. The Bison won their fifth straight game and assumed a two-game lead over the Mountain Hawks while holding the head-to-head tiebreaker by virtue of a sweep of the season series.
Mackenzie scored nine points during a 15-1 Bison run early in the second half, turning a 42-35 deficit into a 50-43 lead. The Mountain Hawks cut the lead back to five, but a pair of free throws by John Meeks pushed the lead to seven, and Lehigh would not get any closer the rest of the way. Bucknell used another 11-2 surge to run the margin all the way up to 16, and then the Bison hit their final nine free throws of the night to end any hopes of a Lehigh comeback.
The Mountain Hawks entered the game ranked first in the country in 3-point field goal percentage, making 44.7% of their shots from behind the arc. The Bison held them to just 27.3% shooting from downtown, as Lehigh made just six of 22 attempts. Overall, the Mountain Hawks shot 41.7% from the field for the game, down from its 49.4% average on the season, which ranked eighth nationally.
Lehigh led by as many as 11 in the first half as Bucknell got out to a frosty start offensively. The Bison missed 10 straight shots while the Mountain Hawks went on a 14-0 run to emerge with a 22-11 lead. Buoyed by 3-pointers from Nate Sestina, Mackenzie, and Jimmy Sotos, Bucknell was able to climb within three at 38-35 at the half.
James Karnik, who led Lehigh with 21 points, scored in the paint twice in the first minute of the second stanza, but the Bison then held the Mountain Hawks to just a single free throw over the next six minutes.
Bucknell continued its recent success on the glass, outrebounding Lehigh 43-31. The Bison held the Mountain Hawks to six offensive rebounds and improved to 10-1 this season when outrebounding their opponent.
The win gave the Bison their first season sweep of Lehigh since 2011. It was also the team's eighth straight home victory and its 17th straight at home against Patriot League opponents.
Bucknell has now won seven games this season when trailing by double figures, and this marked the first time all year that the Mountain Hawks lost a game when leading at the half (11-1).
This was the 18th time in the last 20 regular-season meetings between Bucknell and Lehigh in which at least one of the teams occupied first place in the Patriot League at the time of the game.
Bucknell shot 43.1% from the field and went 6-for-24 from the 3-point arc and 25-for-31 from the foul line.

Bucknell vs. Holy Cross
The Bucknell-Holy Cross rivalry has been one of the league's best through the years. Some of the highlights:

The Bison and Crusaders have combined to win 11 of the last 18 Patriot League titles.
These two teams have met 15 times in the 28 Patriot League Tournaments, with Holy Cross winning eight and Bucknell seven. That includes four times in the championship game. Bucknell defeated Holy Cross in the 2005 and 2006 title tilts, while the Crusaders topped the Bison in the final in 1993 and 2007.
The Bison and Crusaders had never met until the formation of the Patriot League in 1990-91, but this will be the 73rd meeting in 29 years.
Bucknell leads the series 43-29. The road team has won just 10 of the last 27.
Bucknell is 23-11 against Holy Cross in Lewisburg and 16-5 at Sojka Pavilion. Bucknell is 16-15 vs. Holy Cross at the Hart Center, with one of the wins coming in the 2005 Patriot League championship game.
The Bison have swept the Crusaders in each of the last two seasons. A year ago, Bucknell won 77-56 at home and 68-67 in overtime at the Hart Center.
Zach Thomas led the way with 18 points in last year's meeting at Sojka Pavilion. Avi Toomer had a strong game with 10 points in 16 minutes off the bench. Austin Butler and Jacob Grandison tallied 13 apiece for Holy Cross.
In the rematch in Worcester, Bucknell outscored Holy Cross 2-1 in overtime to take the one-point win. Nana Foulland had 21 points, and Zach Thomas and Stephen Brown 15 each for the Bison. Jehyve Floyd paced Holy Cross with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
In this season's first meeting at Sojka Pavilion on Jan. 14, Nate Sestina scored a career-high 32 points on 11-for-11 shooting from the field in Bucknell's 93-78 victory. Kimbal Mackenzie added 17 points, including the 1,000th of his career. Floyd scored 25 points and Butler 17 for Holy Cross. Bucknell led the game by as many as 26 points before the Crusaders made a late run to get as close as nine.

Numbers Worth Noting

Rebounding has been a major key to success for the Bison this season. They are 10-1 when outrebounding their opponent, but 6-7 when losing the battle on the glass.
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 nine games since then, Bucknell is +55 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 10-game stretch where he is averaging 7.8 boards per game. Moore has upped his season rebounding average from 3.3 to 5.1 per game. Moore is also averaging 10.7 points per game over the same nine-game stretch.
Kimbal Mackenzie has been a more efficient scorer on the road this season. He averages 19.1 points per game in true road contests while shooting 47.1% from the field. At home, he scores at a 15.7 ppg clip while shooting 37.5%.
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 87.9% of his free-throw attempts this season, including 89.7% in conference play. Sestina ranks 27th 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   .871
2. Nick Mayo (Eastern Kentucky)   6-9   .862
3. Nick Muszynski (Belmont) 6-11   .859
4. Luka Garza (Iowa) 6-11   .853
5. Mike Daum (South Dakota State) 6-9   .827

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.
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 19 drawn charges this season.
Sophomore Jimmy Sotos struggled in the turnover category early in the season, but over his last 16 games, he has 102 assists with only 37 turnovers. Sotos averages 6.6 assists per game in Bucknell's victories and 4.9 in the losses.
As a team, the Bison rank 31st nationally in assists per made field goal (.588). Holy Cross ranks fifth in that category (.630).
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 1.2 blocks per game, even though he plays just 14.2 minutes per game.
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 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 241 of a possible 260 minutes in the second halves of Patriot League games thus far.
Bucknell is shooting 77.4% from the free-throw line in Patriot League play, but if you remove the 6-for-21 showing from three reserves, that figure goes up to 81.4%.

Who's Got Next?

The Bison travel to Colgate on Tuesday night, looking for the season sweep of the Raiders. Bucknell edged Colgate 84-81 in Lewisburg on Jan. 9.
This is another rematch of the 2018 Patriot League championship game, won by Bucknell last March.

League-Leading Bison Put Five-Game Win Streak on the Line Saturday at Holy Cross

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Stephen Brown

Nana Foulland

Kimbal Mackenzie

John Meeks

Bruce Moore

Paul Newman

Nate Sestina

Jimmy Sotos

Zach Thomas

Avi Toomer

League-Leading Bison Put Five-Game Win Streak on the Line Saturday at Holy Cross

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Stephen Brown

Nana Foulland

Kimbal Mackenzie

John Meeks

Bruce Moore

Paul Newman

Nate Sestina

Jimmy Sotos

Zach Thomas

Avi Toomer

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