Bison, Leopards Set for Saturday Clash at Sojka

SPECTATOR POLICY: Bucknell's spectator has been updated, effective Saturday, Feb. 19. Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test is no longer required for entry. CLICK HERE for more details on the updated policy.

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Bucknell and Lafayette meet for the 174th time when the Leopards visit Sojka Pavilion on Saturday for a 4 p.m. tip. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.

These two teams played a nailbiter in Easton just two weeks ago. Lafayette erased a nine-point deficit to take a 67-64 lead in the final minute before Xander Rice made three clutch free throws with 9.5 seconds left to force overtime. The Bison again trailed by three late in the clock when Andrew Funk tied it with a 3-pointer with 31 seconds left, but Lafayette won it on a Neal Quinn layup with 2.3 seconds remaining. The loss overshadowed big games for Funk (first career double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds), Andre Screen (18 points on 9-10 shooting), and Malachi Rhodes (career-high 12 points off the bench). The Bison outshot the Leopards in that game, but a rash of first-half miscues led to an 18-5 edge in points off turnovers for Lafayette, and the Bison had an uncharacteristically off day at the free-throw line (8-19).

Bucknell has dropped two straight on the heels of a 3-3 stretch, and the Bison will need to win their final three games and get lots of help in order to avoid going on the road for the first round of the Patriot League Tournament. Lafayette has won four of its last six and is tied for seventh place alongside Holy Cross. Those two teams are just a half-game behind Army and Loyola for fifth place, and just 1.5 behind Lehigh for fourth.

After Saturday's game, the Bison will visit Army on Wednesday before wrapping up the regular season on Feb. 26 against Boston University. The Feb. 26 game time has been announced as 2 p.m., and it will be Senior Day and Fan Appreciation Day at Sojka Pavilion.

• Complete Game Notes
• 2021-22 Media Guide

GAME DIGEST
What: Lafayette (9-16, 6-8 PL) at Bucknell (6-21, 3-12 PL)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa.
When: Saturday, Feb. 19, 4 p.m.
Streaming: ESPN+
Local Radio: The Valley WVLY 100.9 FM
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: BucknellBison.com
BUY TICKETS

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Xander Rice (12.3 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 3.9 apg)
G: Andrew Funk (18.0 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 2.5 apg)
G: Elvin Edmonds IV (5.6 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 2.2 apg)
F: Jake van der Heijden (6.5 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.3 apg)
C: Andre Screen (11.3 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 1.1 bpg)

With a Win over Lafayette, Bucknell Would ...

... snap a two-game losing streak and improve to 4-12 in Patriot League play.
... gain a spit of the season series with the Leopards.
... level its home record at 6-6 this season.
... improve to 199-70 all-time at Sojka Pavilion.

Headlines

Bucknell is down to three games remaining in the regular season, with home games against Lafayette and Boston University surrounding a road trip to Army.
The Bison have been idle since Monday's game at Lehigh. The five-day layoff is Bucknell's longest since late-December. Meanwhile, Lafayette is in the midst of a hectic stretch in which it is playing six games in 11 days between Feb. 12-23. Earlier this week, the Leopards lost at Colgate on Monday and beat Loyola at home on Wednesday. Now they travel to Bucknell this Saturday, host Holy Cross on Monday, and then travel to Boston on Wednesday.
The Bison and Leopards will be meeting for the second time in two weeks. Bucknell is looking to avenge a 74-72 overtime loss in Easton on Feb. 5.
Bucknell's hopes of avoiding playing on the road in the Patriot League Tournament opening round have thinned after two close losses to Holy Cross and Lehigh. The Bison would likely need to win their final three games and have Lafayette lose their final four to have a shot.
The Bison have lost four of their last five, but they have had leads of at least nine points in three of those losses. Bucknell has also played very well offensively of late, but has not had the results to show for it. Over the last four games the Bison have shot 49.8% from the field (109-219) and 49.3% from 3-point range (33-67) with a 67-46 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Andrew Funk, the lone senior on the Bison squad, is having a terrific season. Funk is averaging 18.0 ppg, which is second in the league behind Loyola's Cam Spencer (18.7). Funk is one of only 19 players in the nation with at least five games with 28 or more points this season; he is one of only 36 with at least three 30-point games; and he is one of 57 with 11 20-point games.
Funk this week was named to the five-man CoSIDA Academic All-District 2 Team, and he now moves on to the national Academic All-America ballot. Funk is an accounting and financial management major with a 3.66 cumulative grade-point average.
Lafayette is 4-2 over its last six games, including Wednesday's 77-68 home win over Loyola. Jon Brantley came off the bench to hit 5 of 6 3-pointers and score 19 points in that game. Bucknell will be paying close attention to Brantley, who hit four second-half 3-pointers, including a big one in the final minute, on the way to a 16-point night in the first meeting between the two teams in Easton. Brantley was 4-for-9 from the arc, while the rest of the Leopards were 3-for-24.
Neal Quinn, a 7-foot center, leads the team in scoring (14.3), rebounding (7.8), field-goal percentage (.540) and assists (3.7). Tyrone Perry (11.3), Kyle Jenkins (10.7) and Leo O'Boyle (10.2) also score in double figures for the Leopards.
Lafayette takes the most 3-pointers per game (26.7) and makes the second-most (8.4) in the Patriot League, but the Leopards rank 10th in the league in 3FG% (.316).

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Lafayette game can be seen on ESPN+, with Doug Birdsong and former Bison assistant coach Terry Conrad on the call. Birdsong is in his 22nd season as the "Voice of the Bison".
Sam Kuperman will handle the local radio broadcast on The Valley, WVLY 100.9 FM.
The audio feed is also available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
Live in-game statistics can be accessed at BucknellBison.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

On a night when both teams were filling it up from long range, Lehigh came up with the final flurry thanks to senior center Nic Lynch and defeated Bucknell 86-77 on Monday night at Stabler Arena.
Andrew Funk scored a game-high 24 points for the Bison, who shot 50.9% from the field and made 9 of 14 (.643) 3-point attempts.
Lynch had 19 points and 11 rebounds for Lehigh, and it was his own personal 8-0 run in a 64-second span that stretched a two-point margin to 10 with just over two minutes to play.
Andre Screen tallied 16 points and eight rebounds, Xander Rice had 14 points and five assists, and Jake van der Heijden added 12 points on 4-for-4 shooting from the arc, making him 7-for-7 over the last three games.
Marques Wilson, a fifth-year senior, sparked another big night from downtown for Lehigh by hitting 5 of 7, including 4 of 5 in the second half. The Mountain Hawks hit a school-record 18 3-pointers in 34 attempts in a win at Sojka Pavilion earlier in the season, and they went 14-for-24 (.583) in this one.
The bulk of the second half was a true shootout, with both teams answering the other with a flurry of long-range jumpers. There were nine lead changes and four ties over a five-minute span, but Lynch was the catalyst down the stretch for Lehigh. The game was tied at 71 after a Screen free throw with 5:49 to play. Lynch then hit 3 of 4 at the stripe, and after Bucknell missed the front end of a 1-and-1, Higgins followed his own miss for a 76-71 Lehigh lead. Funk swished an open three from the left wing to make it 76-74, but then Lynch scored in the post followed by two straight 3-pointers from the top of the key, and just like that it was a 10-point game with 2:32 to play.
Bucknell had 17 assists on 27 made field goals with only seven turnovers. The starting backcourt of Funk, Rice, and Elvin Edmonds IV combined for 13 assists with one turnover. Lehigh was just as efficient with 19 assists and eight turnovers.
The Mountain Hawks finished with a 40-26 rebounding edge, including a 10-1 advantage on the offensive glass that led to a 16-0 margin in second-chance points.

Bucknell vs. Lafayette Series Notes

Bucknell and Lafayette have met 173 times previously, making the Leopards Bucknell's second most-played opponent (the Bison have played Lehigh 182 times). Since the series began in 1915, Lafayette leads 93-80.
Since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, however, Bucknell has won 51 of 72 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 20-4 against Lafayette in Sojka Pavilion and 28-7 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.
Lafayette swept a weekend series from Bucknell during the modified 2021 season, but the Bison got payback with a 92-84 win in the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinals at Kirby Sports Center. John Meeks was the catalyst in that win with 31 points and 11 rebounds. Xander Rice hit four 3-pointers and scored 19 points, while Andrew Funk tallied 14 points. Justin Jaworski paced Lafayette with 28 points, and E.J. Stephens added 22 off the bench.
In this season's earlier meeting on Feb. 5, Neal Quinn's tiebreaking layup with 2.3 seconds left in overtime gave Lafayette a 74-72 win. Funk had just tied the game with a 3-pointer with 31 seconds left, only for the Leopards to win it on their final possession. Funk recorded his first career double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds, Andre Screen tallied 18 points on 9-for-10 shooting, and Malachi Rhodes scored a career-high 12 points off the bench. Bucknell shot 45.2% to Lafayette's 38.6%, and the Leopards were just 7-for-35 from 3-point range, but the Bison were hampered by turnovers in the first half and uncharacteristically poor free-throw shooting in the second. Quinn paced Lafayette with 19 points and nine rebounds. Jon Brantley scored 16 off the bench, including four second-half 3-pointers that proved big on a day when the Leopards were otherwise struggling mightily from long range.

Notable Numbers

Senior guard Andrew Funk is enjoying his best season to date, with a scoring average (18.0) and field-goal percentage (.432) well above his previous career bests. Funk scored a career-high 38 points at Illinois State on Nov. 20, and his five games this season with 28 or more points are tied for 11th-most in the nation. Funk is one of only 22 Division I players to hit six or more 3-pointers in a game at least four times this season.
Funk's 38 points against Illinois State tied the Cancun Challenge tournament scoring record. Norris Cole, who later played in the NBA, scored 38 against Florida A&M in 2009.
Funk has now entered the top 10 on Bucknell's season and career charts for made 3-pointers.
Funk reached the 1,000-point plateau with a 3-pointer early in the first half at Holy Cross on Jan. 22. Funk became the 44th Bison to score 1,000 career points. He and older brother Tommy Funk also became just the second Patriot League brother combination to both score 1,000 career points. Tommy tallied 1,544 points for Army from 2016-20. The other brother combo to accomplish the feat also involved a Bucknell standout, as Hall-of-Famer Kevin Bettencourt (1,577 from 2002-06) and Holy Cross' Ted Bettencourt (1,035 from 1992-96) also surpassed 1,000 points.
Funk currently ranks second in the Patriot League and 17th nationally in minutes played at 36.4 per game. The last Bison to play more than 36 minutes per game over a full season was Darryl Shazier (36.1) in 2008-09. In addition, Funk ranks third nationally in total minutes played (983:24).
Xander Rice recorded eight assists in both games against Loyola this season. That total is the most by any active Bison. Rice has 54 assists and only 21 turnovers in his last 12 games.
Bucknell has struggled to create turnovers this season, as opponents are committing only 9.3 miscues per game on the season. That coupled with some rebounding troubles means that opponents have attempted 218 more field goals this season. The Bison have taken more shots than their opponent only three times this season — against Penn, Illinois State and Loyola — and in all three of those games the margin was just one additional attempt.
Bucknell has been excellent at the free-throw line thus far, hitting at a 75.7% clip on the season despite a recent slump. That is the best mark in the Patriot League and 40th-best in all of Division I basketball. The Bison ranked in the top-10 nationally at around 80% for much of the season, but they are just 51-for-86 (.593) over the last four games.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Elvin Edmonds IV

Andrew Funk

Andrew Funk

John Meeks

Malachi Rhodes

Xander Rice

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Jake van der Heijden