Bison Head to Easton for First 2022 Meeting with Lafayette

Saturday, February 5

Easton, Pa.

2 p.m.

Bucknell University

Lafayette

Photo by: Evan Bernstein/Hofstra

Bison Head to Easton for First 2022 Meeting with Lafayette

2/4/2022 5:50:00 PM | Men's Basketball

LAFAYETTE SPECTATOR POLICY: Masks are required for all games. There are currently NO concessions. No outside food is allowed, but you may bring bottled water. Current COVID-19 policies on campus WILL require all fans and spectators to show proof of vaccination, along with another form of identification, to enter Kirby Sports Center for basketball games. Masking is required indoors in any Lafayette College Facility.

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Bison are back on the road for the seventh time in 12 Patriot League games when they make a quick day trip to Easton to face Lafayette on Saturday. The 2 p.m. tip will air on ESPN+.

This will be the first of two regular-season meetings between the Bison and Leopards. Lafayette swept the regular-season series from Bucknell a year ago, but the Bison bounced back with a big performance in the postseason. Bucknell won 92-84 at Kirby Sports Center in the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinals, behind 31 points and 11 rebounds from John Meeks.

Both teams are currently looking to make a climb in the Patriot League standings as we head into February. The Leopards are in eighth place with a 3-6 record after beating American at home on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Bison fell at first-place Colgate and remain in 10th place at 2-9. Lafayette still has a couple of COVID-related postponements to make up. Following the Bucknell game, the Leopards will turn right back around and travel to Navy on Monday followed by a crosstown trip to Bethlehem to face arch-rival Lehigh on Saturday. The Bison get their next two at home, against American on Wednesday and Holy Cross on Saturday.

• Complete Game Notes
• 2021-22 Media Guide

GAME DIGEST
What: Bucknell (5-18, 2-9 PL) at Lafayette (6-14, 3-6 PL)
Where: Kirby Sports Center, Easton, Pa.
When: Saturday, Feb. 5, 2 p.m.
Internet Stream: ESPN+
Local Radio: The Valley WVLY 100.9 FM
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: GoLeopards.com

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Elvin Edmonds IV (5.7 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 2.0 apg)
G: Xander Rice (12.2 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 4.0 apg)
G: Andrew Funk (17.9 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 2.3 apg)
F: Jake van der Heijden (6.3 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.2 apg)
C: Andre Screen (10.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 1.0 bpg)

With a Win over Lafayette, Bucknell Would ...

... make it three wins in its last five outings.
... improve to 7-1 in its last eight games in Easton.
... improve to 52-20 against the Leopards in the Patriot League era.

Headlines

Bucknell has played better basketball of late, alternating wins and losses over its last four games with wins over Holy Cross and Loyola. On Wednesday at first-place Colgate, the Bison jumped out to a 27-11 lead, but the hot-shooting Raiders came back to win on the strength of 14 3-pointers.
Bucknell has already completed regular-season series with Navy, Loyola and Colgate, but on Saturday the Bison will play Lafayette for the first time this season. When Bucknell last visited Easton, it came home with a 92-84 victory in the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinals last March.
The Lafayette game will be Bucknell's seventh road tilt in 12 Patriot League appearances. That will balance out down the stretch, as the Bison are set to play four of their final six regular-season games at Sojka Pavilion.
Andrew Funk turned in one of the best performances of his career in last Sunday's win over Loyola. He tallied 34 points, 27 of them coming after halftime, including a clutch go-ahead 3-pointers with 14 seconds left in regulation and again in the early stages of overtime. Defensively, Funk marked Patriot League scoring leader Cam Spencer for most of the game and limited the Loyola star to a season-low 11 points.
Funk on Monday was named the Patriot League Player of the Week for the second time this season. He upped his season average to 17.9 ppg, which is second in the league behind Spencer (19.0). Funk is now one of only seven players in the nation with at least five games with 28 or more points this season, and he is one of only 19 with at least three 30-point games.
Funk isn't the only Bison backcourt starter producing of late. Xander Rice has averaged 15.6 points over his last five games. That stretch includes two games against first-place Colgate in which he scored a combined 38 points. Freshman Elvin Edmonds IV is 6-for-6 from the field in his last two games. He scored 10 points on Wednesday at Colgate, despite being limited to 17 minutes due to foul trouble.
Lafayette snapped a three-game losing streak with a 71-62 home win over American on Wednesday. Standout 7-foot center Neal Quinn led the way with 22 points and 10 rebounds, while Leo O'Boyle tallied 19 points with 3-for-3 shooting from 3-point range. Quinn leads the team in points (13.9) and rebounds (8.2) and assists (4.0) on the season.
The Bison have been susceptible to 3-point shooting in Patriot League play, and they will be facing a Lafayette team that attempts the most threes in the league (27.7 per game). The Leopards make 8.9 treys per game, second-most behind Colgate's 10.3, but Lafayette ranks 10th in the league in 3-point percentage at 32.1%.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Lafayette game will stream live on ESPN+ via the Lafayette Sports Network. Gary Laubach and former Leopards head coach John Leone will call the action.
Doug Birdsong, who is in his 22nd season as the "Voice of the Bison", 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 GoLeopards.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

Ryan Moffatt scored a career-high 24 points and hit six of his team's 14 3-pointers to help first-place Colgate rally for an 83-69 win over Bucknell on Wednesday night at Cotterell Court.
Xander Rice scored 18 points, Andrew Funk had 17, and Elvin Edmonds IV chipped in 10 for the Bison, who stormed to an early 16-point lead. After starting the game 1-for-8 from 3-point range, Colgate hit 13 of its next 19 to spark its comeback.
Much like the first meeting between the two teams at Sojka Pavilion two weeks earlier, there were wild momentum swings throughout the contest. In that first game, the Bison trailed 18-2 early before making a big run to get back in it before Colgate pulled away late. This time Bucknell was on fire early, starting 9-for-13 from the field on the way to a stunning 27-11 lead.

Bucknell vs. Lafayette Series Notes

Bucknell and Lafayette have met 172 times previously, making the Leopards Bucknell's second most-played opponent (the Bison have played Lehigh 181 times). Since the series began in 1915, Lafayette leads 92-80.
Since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, however, Bucknell has won 51 of 71 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.

Notable Numbers

Senior guard Andrew Funk is enjoying his best season to date, with a scoring average (17.9) and field-goal percentage (.436) 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 fourth-most in the nation. Funk is one of only 12 Division I players to hit six or more 3-pointers in a game at least four times this season, and his 38 points are tied for 17th-most in the nation.
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 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 just became the eighth player in Bucknell history to attempt 500 career 3-point shots. Funk needs four more made treys to catch Zach Thomas for 10th all-time. Thomas tallied 169 from 2014-18.
Funk currently ranks second in the Patriot League and 25th nationally in minutes played at 36.0 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.
Xander Rice recorded eight assists in both games against Loyola this season. That total is the most by any active Bison. Rice has 41 assists and only 16 turnovers in his last eight games.
The Jan. 22 win at Holy Cross was the first time the Bison won a game while committing 20 or more turnovers since Jan. 17, 2018, when they had 22 miscues in a 78-70 win over Loyola. They did it again last Sunday, beating Loyola despite 20 turnovers and a 27-0 discrepancy in points off turnovers. Prior to this stretch, only three times in the last 10 years did the Bison win a game while committing 20+ turnovers. Then it happened twice in eight days. Conversely, Bucknell committed only 10 turnovers and had a +6 turnover margin and 23-14 edge in points off TOs at Colgate on Wednesday and lost the game.
Bucknell has struggled to create turnovers this season, as opponents are committing only 9.5 miscues per game on the season. That coupled with some rebounding troubles means that opponents have attempted 188 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 78.8% clip on the season. That is the best mark in the Patriot League and ninth-best in all of Division I basketball. The school record is 78.8%, set by the 2010-11 team.

Patriot League Success

Bucknell is 308-147 (.677) all-time in Patriot League regular-season games, the best record of any league team. The Bison have finished at least .500 in PL play 25 times in 31 Patriot League seasons.
Bucknell won three straight Patriot League regular-season titles from 2011-13, becoming the first team in league history to accomplish that feat. The Bison had won five in a row and eight of the previous nine before finishing T-6th in 2019-20.
Bucknell has made nine Patriot League Tournament appearances as the No. 1 seed and seven as the No. 2 seed.
Bucknell won Patriot League Tournament titles in 2005, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2018. The Bison have made it to the semifinals 24 times and to the championship game 13 times in the league's first 31 years.
The Bison are the only team to go unbeaten in league play in a season (14-0 in 2006).

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell plays four of its next six games at home, starting Wednesday night against American. The 7 p.m. game will stream live on ESPN+. The Bison will be looking to avenge a 63-55 loss in D.C. on Jan. 16.