Men's Basketball Closes Regular Season Saturday with Senior Day Game vs. Army

We're 🔥 up and ready for our Senior Day game tomorrow vs. Army! See you at Sojka for the noon tip (but come early to celebrate our great senior class). #rayBucknell #TheBisonWay pic.twitter.com/C4O2fCSlsa
— Bucknell MBasketball (@Bucknell_MBB) March 1, 2019

What: Army (13-17, 8-9 PL) at Bucknell (18-11, 12-5 PL)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa. | BUY TICKETS
When: Saturday, March 2, 12 p.m.
TV: CBS Sports Network
Local Radio: Eagle 107 (107.3 FM WEGH)
Listen Live: BucknellBison.com and Eagle107.com
Live Stats: BucknellBison.com

• COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Probable Starters
G: Jimmy Sotos (8.7 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 6.0 apg)
G: Kimbal Mackenzie (17.0 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.9 apg)
G: Nate Jones (2.5 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 0.7 apg)
F: Bruce Moore (9.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 0.8 apg)
C: Nate Sestina (16.2 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 1.1 apg)

Happenings

Senior Day (11:45 a.m. ceremony)
Fan Appreciation Day, presented by Sheetz. The first 1,000 fans will receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win prizes throughout the game!
BJ's "Shot to Win" contest

With a Win over Army, Bucknell Would ...

... finish the regular season 19-10 overall and 13-5 in the Patriot League.
... gain at least a share of the Patriot League regular-season title for the eighth time in the last nine years.
... be assured of a top-two seed for the Patriot League Tournament.
... earn the No. 1 seed if Lafayette defeats Colgate.
... win its 11th straight game against the Black Knights.
... win its 10th straight home game and improve to 10-3 at Sojka Pavilion this season.
... win its 19th straight home game against Patriot League opponents.
... improve to 294-122 all-time in Patriot League play and 119-31 in the PL over the last nine seasons.

Headlines

There is a lot happening on Saturday when Army West Point visits Sojka Pavilion for the final game of the 2018-19 regular season. CBS Sports Network will be in town to televise the game, Bucknell will celebrate Senior Day before the game, and then there is the matter of determining the seeding for the Patriot League Tournament.
Wednesday's loss at Navy dropped the Bison into a three-way tie for first place with Colgate and Lehigh at 12-5 in Patriot League play. A win over Army would assure no worse than the No. 2 seed, but in order to secure the No. 1 seed, Bucknell is going to need a win over Army and a Colgate loss at Lafayette. The Bison would prevail in a head-to-head tiebreaker over Lehigh, but they would come up short in a head-to-head with Colgate or a three-way tie with Colgate and Lehigh. In the latter scenario, Bucknell would be second and Lehigh third.
Meanwhile, Army comes in with an 8-9 record and is tied with American for fourth place. The Eagles swept the Black Knights, however, which means that Army would need a win and an American loss at Holy Cross to move up to the No. 4 seed and host a quarterfinal game.
While the postseason seeding would potentially be determined by tiebreakers, a victory on Saturday would give Bucknell at least a share of its eighth Patriot League regular-season title in the last nine years. The previous seven have been outright (no ties) titles.
Prior to the game, the Bison will honor senior manager Heather Smith and senior players Nate Jones, Kimbal Mackenzie, Matt O'Reilly and Nate Sestina. This senior class has produced an 86-44 (.662) record to date and has won three Patriot League regular-season titles, two PL Tournament titles, and has two NCAA Tournament appearances. The 86 wins are sixth-most among any class in team history.
Bucknell and Army will be meeting for the first time since all the way back on Jan. 2, and it was a memorable one for the Bison. Down 37-13 at the half and 39-13 in the opening minute of the second half, Bucknell stormed back to win 64-63 on a layup by Avi Toomer with 1.6 seconds remaining.
Senior Nate Jones picked up a nice honor last week when he was named to the five-man Google Cloud Academic All-District Team. Jones is now eligible for the national Google Cloud Academic All-America ballot.
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.
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 Bucknell-Army game features round two between brothers Tommy and Andrew Funk. Tommy is Army's starting point guard and is having a terrific junior season (12.4 ppg, 6.1 apg), while Andrew comes off the bench and is a key rotation player for the Bison as a freshman.
This game will also see a clash of the Patriot League's top two assist men. Tommy Funk leads the league with 6.1 assists per game, while Bucknell's Jimmy Sotos is a close second at 6.0.
Bucknell head coach Nathan Davis and Army head coach Jimmy Allen were both members of Don DeVoe's coaching staff at Navy from 1998-2002.
Army had lost seven of its last eight before defeating Loyola 79-69 at home on Wednesday night. The Black Knights are 10-4 at Christl Arena this season but 3-11 on the road and 0-2 at neutral sites. Matt Wilson leads the team in scoring at 13.4 points per game, and his 8.8 rebounds per game are the most in the Patriot League. Tommy Funk is the team's other double-digit scorer. Army is an excellent defensive rebounding team. The Black Knights nab a league-high 77.9% of opponents' misses.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Army game will be televised on CBS Sports Network, with Jason Knapp and Mo Cassara describing the action.
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 BucknellBison.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

Hasan Abdullah scored 17 points, including eight big ones in the closing minutes to help stave off a Bucknell rally, leading Navy to a 64-53 decision over the Bison on Wednesday night at Alumni Hall.
Kimbal Mackenzie scored 15 points for Bucknell. Jimmy Sotos tallied nine points and seven assists, and Nate Sestina had eight points and 12 rebounds, but the Bison could not keep their offensive prowess going after scoring 118 points against Lafayette on Sunday.
The Bison shot 29.6% in the game, went 6-for-27 from the 3-point arc, and were chasing the game right from the start after Navy came out on fire on its Senior Night.
While the Bison were starting 3-for-13, Navy was 9-for-13 and 5-for-6 from the arc while running out to a 24-9 lead. The Midshipmen led 29-12 at the 6:46 mark and 35-21 at the half. Bucknell came up with plenty of stops in the second half but still struggled to put together any sustained runs. The Bison did chip away at the deficit and pulled within six on two occasions in the final five minutes, but both times Abdullah answered with driving layups to push the margin back to eight.
Navy finished the night shooting 37.0% after the hot start. The Bison held them to 28.6% shooting in the second half (1-for-7 from the arc) but shot just 34.6% themselves.
Bucknell saw its 11-game series winning streak come to an end and missed a chance to secure a top-two seed and at least a share of the Patriot League regular-season title.

Bucknell vs. Army West Point

The Bison hold a 57-21 lead in a series that dates back to 1929. Bucknell has won the last 10 meetings, including a come-from-behind 64-63 verdict earlier this season.
The Bison are 32-5 all-time at home against Army.
Army won the first 10 series showdowns, nine of them coming prior to 1966.
As Patriot League rivals, Bucknell has won 56 of 67 meetings.
In Patriot League Tournament action, Bucknell is 8-2 against Army. Eight of those 10 postseason meetings have come in the quarterfinals, including Army's 72-71 win at Sojka Pavilion in 2014, which was its most recent victory over the Bison.
Last season, Bucknell won 83-66 at Christl Arena and 83-71 in overtime at Sojka Pavilion.
In the game at West Point, Bucknell's top scorers Zach Thomas and Nana Foulland were kept in check in the points column, but Stephen Brown, Bruce Moore and Ben Robertson had big games. Brown logged 19 points and five assists, Moore hit four treys and tossed in 17 points, and Robertson, helping to make up for some of the lost production from the injured Nate Sestina, scored a career-high 11 points. Jimmy Sotos added 13 points and a career-high five steals.
In the rematch in Lewisburg, Bucknell stormed back from a 19-point deficit to win in overtime. Thomas scored 25 of his 32 points after halftime, and Foulland and Kimbal Mackenzie added 15 points each. Mackenzie's 4-point play in overtime stretched Bucknell's lead to seven.

Revisiting the Army Comeback

It was one for the ages at West Point on Jan. 2. The Bison endured a horrific first half, hitting 4 of 27 shots from the floor and 1 of 16 from 3-point range. They trailed by 24 (37-13) at the half and then by 26 (39-13) in the opening minute of the second half before storming back to win 64-63.
The rally happened quickly. After Jacob Kessler's put-back gave Army the 39-13 lead, Bucknell went on a 27-4 run in a span of just 6:56. By the 12:34 mark of the second half, the Bison found themselves down just 43-40.
Bucknell needed only 3:38 to double its first-half point total and just 3:03 to double its first-half field-goal total.
Nate Sestina was one of the catalysts in the comeback. Embedded in that 27-4 run were 17 points from Sestina on 7-for-7 shooting, all coming in a span of just 5:17. Sestina finished the night with 22 points and 12 rebounds.
After Army regained a couple of eight-point leads, Bucknell tied the game for the first time at 57-57 on a Jimmy Sotos 3-pointer, and their first lead of the night on a Kimbal Mackenzie layup with 4:54 to play.
In the closing sequence, Army had the ball and a 63-62 lead with a seven-second differential between the shot clock and game clock. Avi Toomer contested Tommy Funk's 3-point attempt from the top of the arc, and it came up short. Sestina grabbed the rebound, outletted to Sotos, who quickly passed ahead to Mackenzie. The senior took a dribble and then threaded a bounce pass ahead to Toomer, just past the outstretched fingertips of an Army defender. Toomer gathered and laid the ball in with 1.6 seconds remaining. Army could not get off a shot as time expired.
Sotos was sensational again in the second half. He finished the game with nine points, seven rebounds and 11 assists. All of his points and rebounds, and nine of his 11 assists, came in the second period.
After shooting 14.8% overall (1-16 3FG) in the first half, the Bison flipped the script and shot 60.0% (7-12 3FG) in the second. Meanwhile, Army shot 46.9% in the first and 30.3% in the second, including a 2-for-17 showing from long distance.
According to the NCAA record book, the 26-point comeback is tied for the 10th-largest in Division I college basketball history. It is also tied for the seventh-biggest second-half deficit overcome in a win, and the 24-point halftime margin is tied for the sixth-largest deficit overcome.

Numbers Worth Noting

Mackenzie needs six more 3-pointers to become the sixth player in Bucknell history with 200 in his career.
Sotos needs two more assists to crack Bucknell's single-season top-10 chart. Sotos has 163 on the season, and he is trying to become the first Bison to average at least 6.0 assists per game since Mike Joseph (6.3) in 1989-90.
Rebounding has been a major key to success for the Bison this season. They are 11-2 when outrebounding their opponent, but 6-9 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 13 games since then, Bucknell is +69 on the boards.
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 20 drawn charges this season.
Sophomore Jimmy Sotos struggled in the turnover category early in the season, but over his last 20 games, he has 127 assists with only 50 turnovers. Sotos averages 6.8 assists per game in Bucknell's victories and 5.0 in the losses.
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.
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.
As a team, the Bison rank 28th nationally in assists per made field goal (.592).
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 fourth in the league with 1.1 blocks per game, even though he plays just 13.8 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.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell is assured of hosting a game in the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinal round on March 7, against an opponent to be determined.
The game will be televised on Stadium TV and stream on the Patriot League Network.

Men's Basketball Closes Regular Season Saturday with Senior Day Game vs. Army

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Stephen Brown

Nana Foulland

Andrew Funk

Nate Jones

Kimbal Mackenzie

Bruce Moore

Paul Newman

Matt O'Reilly

Ben Robertson

Nate Sestina

Jimmy Sotos

Zach Thomas

Avi Toomer

Men's Basketball Closes Regular Season Saturday with Senior Day Game vs. Army

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Stephen Brown

Nana Foulland

Andrew Funk

Nate Jones

Kimbal Mackenzie

Bruce Moore

Paul Newman

Matt O'Reilly

Ben Robertson

Nate Sestina

Jimmy Sotos

Zach Thomas

Avi Toomer

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