Paul Newman's Late Free Throw Helps Bucknell to 71-70 Senior Night Win over Colgate

Wednesday, February 26

Lewisburg, Pa.

7 p.m.

Bucknell University

12-18,8-9Patriot

Colgate

22-8,13-4Patriot

Team	1	2	F
Colgate	27	43	70
Bucknell	38	33	71

Photo by: Marc Hagemeier

Paul Newman's Late Free Throw Helps Bucknell to 71-70 Senior Night Win over Colgate

2/26/2020 9:35:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

NOTE: Please join the Bison men's and women's basketball teams for the final luncheon of the season on Thursday at noon at Matty's Sporthouse Grill in Lewisburg. Coaches Nathan Davis and Trevor Woodruff will be joined by student-athletes for comments and Q&A. The $11 admission includes lunch.

LEWISBURG, Pa – Paul Newman hit a go-ahead free throw with 7.4 seconds remaining, and Jimmy Sotos and Bucknell finished the game with yet another defensive stop in a wild 71-70 victory over first-place Colgate on Senior Night at Sojka Pavilion. The Bison have now won three of their last four to get to 8-9 in Patriot League play on the season, and they enter Saturday's regular-season finale at Boston University tied with Navy for sixth place.

It was quite a guard battle between Bucknell's Jimmy Sotos and Colgate's Jordan Burns. Sotos finished with 17 points, seven rebounds, three assists and three steals, and it was his beautiful pick-and-roll feed to Newman that set up the winning free throw.

Meanwhile, Burns continued to torment the Bison. He had 24 points and four steals in this one, including 16 points in the second half to help Colgate flip a 17-point deficit into a six-point lead. But after the Newman free throw, Sotos forced Burns into a tough leaner from outside the key on the right side, and it was off the mark as time expired.

Bucknell started and finished the game with some of its best defense of the season. They harassed the Raiders into an 0-for-10 shooting start with four turnovers over the game's first eight minutes. The Bison led by as many as 16 in the first half and built the margin to 17 at 47-30 with 17:27 left in the second stanza.

Colgate (22-8, 13-4 PL), which had already clinched the top seed in the Patriot League Tournament, made a furious comeback and went up by six at 69-63 after a Jack Ferguson 3-pointer with 5:30 left. But Bucknell locked up the Raiders the rest of the way. The visitors missed their final eight field-goal attempts of the night, while the Bison finished the game on an 8-1 run.

Sotos was the catalyst. He made a layup around Newman's nice seal in the lane, and at the four-minute mark Sotos stole a post entry, went coast-to-coast and drew a foul going up. He made both free throws to cut the margin to 69-68. The score was stuck there for more than three minutes as neither team could get a shot to drop, and then the Bison finally regained the lead on Sotos' 15-foot jumper with 53 seconds left.

Burns was fouled at the other end with 35 seconds to play, but he missed the second of two free throws to leave the game tied at 70. After a timeout with 29 seconds left on the game clock and 24 on the shot clock, Sotos came off a Newman screen, then dished to the Bison center cutting to the rim. As Newman went up for a dunk, he was fouled by Will Rayman trying to block the shot.

Newman made the first free throw and missed the second. Colgate pushed the ball up the floor and had Burns isolated on Sotos, but the Bison junior held his ground and forced the tough shot.

"I really thought the way the game started, it started in practice the last two days," said head coach Nathan Davis, who was honored prior to the game for picking up his 100th Bucknell win last week. "Guys responded great. We had much better focus, and I thought it carried over. I'd like to think that we grew up a little bit and we finally did get out of our own way at the end. We had been getting in a hole and were not able to get out of it. We found a way out of it, and guys made plays down the stretch to win the game."

Sotos, who was coming off a 20-point game on Sunday at Lehigh, was Bucknell's top scorer for the second straight game. He was joined in double figures by Walter Ellis wither 12 points, Avi Toomer with 11 and Andrew Funk with 10. Ellis also had a career-high eight rebounds, and John Meeks chipped in six points and seven rebounds.

The Bison shot the 3-ball well, hitting 9 of 22 (.409), but their 12-for-35 (.343) shooting from inside the arc nearly proved costly. Bucknell shot 36.8 percent for the game, while Colgate hit at a 40.7 percent clip. The Raiders shot 29.6 percent in the first half but 51.9 percent in the second, and they were 6-for-19 from downtown. Both teams connected on 20 of 30 at the free-throw line in a game that was slowed by 44 fouls.

While the Bison were limiting the Raiders to one field goal in the first 10 minutes of the game, they had trouble gaining separation thanks to some frosty shooting of their own. Finally some 3-pointers began falling, and the lead ballooned into double figures.

It was a 14-10 game at the 7:36 mark when Ben Robertson hit a pull-up 3-pointer from the top of the key. On consecutive possessions Ellis hit a three and then swished another while drawing a foul, turning it into a 4-point play. Toomer's third triple of the half made it 32-17, and a steal and breakaway dunk from Ellis shoved the margin all the way to 16 at 36-20 with 1:42 to go.

Colgate made some headway with a 7-2 run to close the half, and then after two missed layups to start the second stanza, Rayman hit a three out of the right corner to make it a 38-30 game.

Sotos responded with a 3-pointer of his own, sparking a 9-0 Bucknell run. Toomer turned a steal into another breakaway jam, Funk made two free throws, and Kahliel Spear knocked down a baseline jumper to make it 47-30 with 17:27 to go.

Burns helped bring the Raiders back. He scored seven of Colgate's next nine points, and the visitors got all the way back to two at 53-51 on two free throws by Tucker Richardson.

Bucknell thwarted two Colgate possessions with a chance to tie or take the lead, and a put-back by Sotos and a 3-pointer by Ellis stretched the lead back to seven at 58-51.

Funk rattled in a turnaround jumper in the lane to make it 61-56 with 9:14 left, but Colgate followed with a 10-0 run to take its first lead since it was 1-0. Rapolas Ivanauskas split a pair of free throws to even things at 61-all, and then Rayman drew a foul with 7:18 to play that was the fifth of the night on Toomer. Rayman gave Colgate a 62-61 lead with 1 of 2 at the line, and back-to-back layups by Burns made it a 66-61 game.

Meeks hit a short jump hook in the lane to end Bucknell's drought at 3:20, but an offensive rebound and kickout for a Ferguson 3-pointer gave the Raiders the 69-63 lead, setting up Bucknell's inspired finish.

At 8-9 in Patriot League play, Bucknell and Navy are tied for sixth place, one game behind 9-8 Lafayette and one ahead of 7-10 Loyola. Finishing sixth is advantageous, as the top six teams get byes into the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinal round. The 7 and 8 seeds host first-round games next Tuesday.

With one game remaining in the regular season, the Bison can be no worse than the No. 8 seed, and they can jump to the No. 6 spot with a victory at Boston University and a Navy loss at Lafayette.

Saturday's game in Boston is a noon tip on the Patriot League Network.

Additional Notes:
Bucknell beat Colgate for the fifth straight time at Sojka Pavilion but also snapped a three-game overall losing streak to the Raiders … prior to the game, seniors Toomer, Robertson and Bruce Moore were honored, along with managers, Luke Summers, Michael Bangs and L.J. Shapiro … Toomer went 3-for-4 from downtown on his way to 11 points … Robertson added five points, including his second made 3-pointer of the season … Moore is out with a broken hand, but he came out for the opening tip before leaving the game … Ellis has now scored in double figures in four of his last five games off the bench, and he has connected on three 3-pointers in four of his last five … with his three assists, Sotos moved past Abe Badmus into ninth place on Bucknell's career assists chart with 377 … next on the list is Cal Puriefoy with 399 … Rayman had a double-double for Colgate with 12 points and 13 rebounds, but the Bison forced him into seven turnovers … Colgate edged Bucknell on the glass 39-38, but the Raiders were limited to five offensive rebounds.

Postgame Press Conference: