Men's Basketball Visits Georgia Friday Night in First of Three in Greenlight Sunshine Slam

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- With Thanksgiving now just a week away, that means holiday tournament time in college basketball. The Bucknell men's squad is set to play three games over the next five days in the Greenlight Sunshine Slam, presented by Discount Tire. First up is a campus-site game at Georgia on Friday night, and then the Bison will continue south for two games in the Ocean Bracket in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Bucknell will face Presbyterian on Monday at 2 p.m., and then either UAlbany or Austin Peay the following day. A win over the Blue Hose would put the Bison in the flight championship on Tuesday at noon. The consolation game of the Ocean Bracket will be played at 8:30 p.m. Both games in Daytona Beach can be seen on the FloHoops streaming platform (subscription required). The Georgia game will be televised on the SEC Network.

Georgia, UAB, South Florida, and Saint Joseph's will comprise the Beach Bracket.

After winning its first two games of the season in convincing fashion, the Bison took their first loss on Tuesday at Saint Peter's. Bucknell shot better than 54 percent from the field in the 82-71 setback, but the Peacocks also hit at a 50-percent clip and racked up a big advantage on the offensive glass.

Bucknell and Georgia will be squaring off for the first time since early in the 1991-92 season, when the Bulldogs escaped with a 93-90 win in Athens. Like Bucknell, Georgia comes into the game with a 2-1 record following a win over Miami (Ohio) on Monday.

GAME DIGEST
What: Bucknell (2-1) at Georgia (2-1)
Where: Stegeman Coliseum, Athens, Ga.
When: Friday, Nov. 18, 7 p.m.
TV: SEC Network
Local Radio: The Valley (WVLY 100.9)
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: GeorgiaDogs.com
COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Elvin Edmonds IV (11.3 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 4.0 apg)
G: Xander Rice (15.7 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 4.7 apg)
F: Ian Motta (6.3 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Alex Timmerman (10.3 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 1.7 apg)
C: Andre Screen (15.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 1.7 bpg)

Headlines

Bucknell's next three games will all be part of the Greenlight Sunshine Slam, presented by Discount Tire. The Bison will play a campus-site game at Georgia on Friday. After the game, the team will bus to Savannah for an overnight stay and a Saturday practice at Savannah State. The Bison will then continue down to Daytona Beach, where they will play games on Monday and Tuesday at the Ocean Center.
Not counting the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, Bucknell is playing in an early-season exempt multi-team event (MTE) for the sixth year in a row. Other warm-weather destinations have included Cancun (2021), Orlando (2019), Honolulu (2018), and Las Vegas (2016).
Bucknell started the season strong, winning its first two games by a combined 79 points. After setting a school record with a 61-point win (113-52) over Division III Lebanon Valley last Monday, the Bison came back last Saturday and used a big second half to pull away from Niagara, 68-50. Bucknell's first road trip of the season also resulted in the first loss, an 82-71 setback at Saint Peter's.
Bucknell has shot the basketball extremely well thus far. Even in the loss at Saint Peter's, the Bison shot 54.5% from the field. They have hit at a 50% clip or better in each of the first three games of the season and rank 12th nationally in field-goal percentage, third in 3-point percentage, and fifth in effective field-goal percentage, which is an adjusted field-goal percentage that accounts for the added worth of a 3-pointer.

NCAA Team Leaders, 3-Point FG Percentage
1. Western Kentucky   39-72   .542
2. James Madison    46-85   .541
3. Bucknell 34-68   .500
Ohio      21-42   .500
5. Hofstra 35-72   .486

NCAA Team Leaders, Effective Field-Goal Percentage (FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA)
1. Coastal Carolina   .700
2. Bryant      .676
3. James Madison    .674
4. North Alabama .661
5. Bucknell   .655

Few shooters have been hotter to start the season than Elvin Edmonds IV, who is 8-for-10 from the 3-point arc. That is the fifth-best mark in Division I.

NCAA Individual Leaders, 3-Point FG Percentage
1. Micah Thomas, Nicholls 8-9   .889
2. Sam Hastreiter, North Dakota State   9-11   .818
Justin Wright, N.C. Central     9-11   .818
4. Luke Frampton, Western Kentucky 13-16   .812
5. Elvin Edmonds IV, Bucknell   8-10   .800

Xander Rice is coming off a 19-point, 6-assist performance at Saint Peter's and he leads the team in both categories on the season (15.7 ppg, 4.8 apg). He has 14 assists and only four turnovers through three games.
Center Andre Screen is now shooting 70.0% from the field (21-30) this season after an 8-for-11 performance against Saint Peter's that included four dunks. The Bison are starting a big frontcourt this season with the 7'1" Screen in the pivot next to 6'10" power forward Alex Timmerman. The duo has combined to make 30 of 47 shots (.638) from the field this season.
Bucknell is looking to bounce back from a 9-23 season a year ago. The Bison were playing well at the end of the season, however, with an overtime win at Lafayette in the Patriot League Tournament first round capping a 3-1 stretch. Bucknell was eliminated by Colgate in the quarterfinal round.
Bucknell won eight Patriot League regular-season titles in a nine-year span from 2011-19, and the Bison went to the NCAA Tournament in 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2018 during that stretch. Now Bucknell is trying to rebound from a rare run of three straight sub-.500 seasons, something that has not happened since 2007-08 to 2009-10, although the Bison did win conference tournament games in each of the last three years.
This year's squad is led by a trio of senior co-captains in Xander Rice, Alex Timmerman, and Jake van der Heijden. Rice is in his second season as a captain.

The Opposition

Bucknell will be making its first trip to Georgia since the second game of the 1991-92 season. Charlie Woollum's squad took the Bulldogs right to the wire before falling 93-90. Mike Bright had one of the best games of his career, hitting a then-school record seven 3-pointers before finishing with 29 points and 12 rebounds. Litterial Green led Georgia with 23 points, and Kendall Rhine added 22 and 10 boards. The only other meeting between these two teams came in 1972-73, when Georgia won 97-80 in Athens despite 20 points and 10 rebounds from David Greenwood. That was Bucknell's ninth game under first-year head coach Jim Valvano.
Georgia is 2-1 on the season, with home wins over Western Carolina and Miami (Ohio) wrapped around a loss at Wake Forest. Former Florida and Louisiana Tech head coach Mike White is in his first season with the Bulldogs and is looking to help the team rebound from a 6-26 season in 2021-22.
Terry Roberts, a Bradley transfer, leads the team in scoring at 14.3 ppg. That includes a 22-point performance in Georgia's most recent win against Miami. Kario Oquendo is also scoring in double figures at 13.0 ppg. He was the team's leading scorer last year at 15.2 ppg, including an 18.3 ppg mark in SEC play that was highlighted by a 33-point effort against Texas A&M.
Presbyterian opened the season with a 76-42 win over Carolina University, but the Blue Hose have dropped road games at The Citadel and East Carolina. Presbyterian, which went 12-20 last season, will travel to UAB before heading to Daytona.
Three Blue Hose are scoring in double figures through three games. Crosby James is averaging 14.7 ppg, while Marquis Bennett and Owen McCormack are both tallying 10.0 ppg.
Bucknell won the only other meeting between the two teams, which also came in an MTE. In 2010-11, the Bison won 71-47 in a game played at James Madison as part of the CBE Classic. Darryl Shazier had 16 points and five assists to lead the Bison, who would go on to win the Patriot League championship that season.
Bucknell's most familiar of the potential day-two opponents in Daytona is UAlbany. The Bison have won 7 of 9 meetings against the Great Danes, including a come-from-behind 65-64 verdict in Sojka Pavilion in 2019-20. Jimmy Sotos recorded 23 points and Avi Toomer had 21 for the Bison, who trailed by 15 in the second half. Then-freshmen Alex Timmerman and Xander Rice both saw time off the bench in that one.
UAlbany is 2-2 on the season, with wins over Immaculata and Union and losses to Towson and Siena. Coach Dwayne Killings's team is led by Gerald Drumgoole Jr., who is averaging 17.0 ppg, including 22 at Siena and 26 against Union in the last two outings. The Great Danes will visit Saint Joseph's on Thursday before traveling south.
Bucknell and Austin Peay have never before met on the hardwood. The Governors are 1-2, rebounding from one-sided losses to North Carolina State and Purdue with a 98-74 rout of Milligan on Monday. Austin Peay, which went 12-17 overall and 8-10 in the Ohio Valley Conference, will face South Florida in a campus-site game on Thursday.
Nate James's team is led by forward Shon Robinson, who is averaging 17.0 ppg and 5.3 rpg after going for 27 points and nine boards against Milligan. Elijah Hutchins-Everett, a 6'11" center from New Jersey, averages 12.0 ppg and 6.3 rpg.

How to Get the Games

Friday's game at Georgia will be televised on the SEC Network, with Jonathan Yardley and Mark Wise calling the action.
The two games in Daytona Beach will be streamed on FloHoops. Corey Brooks and Ben Stout will be on the call on Monday and Tuesday
Veteran play-by-play man Doug Birdsong will have the radio call back to the Susquehanna Valley. Monday afternoon's game against Presbyterian will be carried on WKOK 1070 AM. Tuesday's game will also be on WKOK if the Bison are playing in the noon time slot, and it will air on The Valley 100.9 FM if Bucknell is in the 8:30 p.m. game.
The audio feed is also available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

Bucknell took its first loss of the season on Tuesday, falling 82-71 at defending MAAC champion Saint Peter's, which is coming off a Cinderella run to the Elite Eight. The Bison shot 54.5% from the field but were hurt by wide disparity on the glass. The Peacocks turned 14 offensive rebounds into an 18-4 edge in second-chance points.
Xander Rice paced the Bison with 19 points and six assists, and the frontcourt pair of Andre Screen (18) and Alex Timmerman (14) also scored in double figures.
The Bison had 14 assists against 11 turnovers and went 6-for-14 from 3-point distance. Bucknell was whistled for only eight fouls in the game and outscored Saint Peter's 17-5 at the free-throw stripe.
The Bison are now 6-10 all-time against teams that advanced at least to the Elite Eight the previous season.
Jaylen Murray, a MAAC All-Rookie selection who scored eight points in Saint Peter's first-round upset of Kentucky last March, hit four of his six 3-point attempts on the way to a game-high 22 points. Kyle Cardaci added 16 for the Peacocks, hitting 3-for-6 from long range.

Who's Got Next?

Following the Sunshine Slam, the Bison will play their next two at home, starting with Marist on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The Bison and Red Foxes will be meeting for the first time since 2014.

Men's Basketball Visits Georgia Friday Night in First of Three in Greenlight Sunshine Slam

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Elvin Edmonds IV

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden

Men's Basketball Visits Georgia Friday Night in First of Three in Greenlight Sunshine Slam

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Elvin Edmonds IV

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden

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