Men's Basketball Takes on Army Wednesday Night at West Point

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Four days after traveling to the Patriot League's first-place team, the Bucknell men's basketball squad is now faced with taking on the league's second-place team, also on the road. The Bison pay a visit to historic West Point on Wednesday evening to face a red-hot Army team that has won six of its last seven games.

While the Black Knights are off to a 5-1 start in Patriot League play, the Bison are looking to reverse course after an 0-6 start. Bucknell did play well for stretches at 6-0 Colgate on Saturday but fell 71-65. Center Andre Screen had one of his best games of the season with 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting from the field and 6-for-6 from the foul line.

Wednesday's game features a matchup of two of the Patriot League's top four scorers. Bucknell's Xander Rice is hitting at a career-best 15.4 ppg clip, and he has become the first Bison since Stephen Brown in 2018 to score in double figures in 20 straight games. Army's Jalen Rucker is second in the league in scoring at 16.7 ppg, and in Patriot League play that figure vaults up to 22.0 ppg. Rucker is coming off a 29-point game in Army's most recent win at Boston University, and earlier in the month he exploded for 35 in a victory over Loyola.

Bucknell has dominated the all-time series, leading 59-24 overall and 58-14 since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, but the Black Knights have won the last three meetings. Two of those wins came last season, 96-89 in Lewisburg in the highest-scoring game in series history, and 73-60 at West Point. Bucknell's last win at Christl Arena was a wild 64-63 verdict in 2019, when the Bison stormed back from a 26-point second-half deficit to win on Avi Toomer's layup with 1.6 seconds remaining.

GAME DIGEST
What: Bucknell (7-12, 0-6 PL) at Army West Point (11-8, 5-1 PL)
Where: Christl Arena, West Point, N.Y.
When: Wednesday, Jan. 18, 6 p.m.
Streaming: ESPN+
Local Radio: WVLY (100.9 FM)
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: G oArmyWestPoint,com
COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Elvin Edmonds IV (7.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.3 apg)
G: Xander Rice (15.4 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 3.8 apg)
F: Ian Motta (6.2 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 0.9 apg)
F: Alex Timmerman (11.9 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 1.7 apg)
C: Andre Screen (11.2 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 1.1 bpg)

With a Win over Army, Bucknell Would ...

... snap an eight-game losing streak and improve to 8-12 overall and 1-6 in the Patriot League.
... avoid the first nine-game losing streak since the team dropped 11 straight bridging the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons.
... snap a three-game losing streak to the Black Knights and improve to 60-24 all-time against them.
... halt a six-game road losing streak.

Headlines

Bucknell is in the midst of a challenging week with back-to-back road games against the top two teams in the Patriot League standings. The Bison played well at times in a 71-65 loss at first-place Colgate on Saturday, and now they travel to West Point to take on an Army team that has won six of its last seven and is 5-1 in Patriot League play, with the only loss coming to Colgate by two points.
The Bison have dropped eight straight games since a Dec. 18 home win over Merrimack. Bucknell has played solid defense over that span but has not been able to overcome an offensive slide. In Saturday's loss at Colgate, the Bison held a prolific offensive team to four 3-pointers and 71 points, nearly 10 under their season average. But at the offensive end, Bucknell shot 42.0% from the field and went 4-for-16 from the arc.
Bucknell shot 50% or better in seven of the first nine games and ranked in the top 10 nationally in field-goal percentage and 3-point percentage. Over the last 10 contests, however, the Bison have struggled at the offensive end.

Bucknell Offense
      PPG    FG%   3FG%
First 9 Games 75.6   .509   .399
Last 10 Games 62.6   .415   .298
Patriot League Games 62.0   .407   .238

Bucknell's recent shooting struggles have not included free-throw accuracy. The Bison went 19-for-20 from the line at Colgate on Saturday, and over the last six games they are 73-for-91 (.802). Bucknell now leads the Patriot League in free-throw shooting at 73.1% on the season.
Senior Xander Rice has upped his scoring output in his senior season and comes into the game as the Patriot League's fourth-leading scorer at 15.4 ppg. Rice, who topped the 900-point mark for his career last Wednesday against Loyola, has scored in double figures in every game this season and 20 straight dating back to last year.

2022-23 Patriot League Scoring Leaders
1. Gerrale Gates, Holy Cross 17.5
2. Jalen Rucker, Army 16.7
3. Tucker Richardson, Colgate 15.4
4. Xander Rice, Bucknell 15.4
5. Evan Taylor, Lehigh 14.9

Rice is the first Bison player with 20 straight double-figure scoring games since Stephen Brown did it in the final 21 games of the 2017-18 season.
Army has played very good basketball of late and has positioned itself as a contender for one of the Patriot League's top seeds. Since dropping a 77-75 decision to first-place Colgate on Jan. 9, the Black Knights have bounced back with wins over American at home (72-60) and Boston University on the road (83-74).
Junior guard Jalen Rucker has captured each of the last two Patriot League Player of the Week awards thanks to some prolific scoring games. Rucker tallied 35 points in a win over Loyola on Jan. 5, and this past Saturday he had 29 points in a road win over Boston University. Rucker is averaging a league-high 22.0 ppg in PL games and ranks second in the league in scoring in all games at 16.7 ppg.
Army has four players averaging double-figure points and five with at least 9.8 ppg. Two of those are freshmen, as Coleton Benson (11.5) and Ethan Roberts (11.4) are the second and third-leading scorers behind Rucker. Army is the second-highest scoring team in the Patriot League at 76.3 ppg, trailing only Colgate, and the Black Knights shoot a stellar 49.8% as a team.
The Bison were picked eighth in the Patriot League preseason coaches' poll, ahead of Holy Cross and Lafayette. Defending-champion Colgate was the preseason No. 1 pick.
Bucknell finished 9-23 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.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Army game will be streamed on ESPN+.
Doug Birdsong, who is in his 23rd 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 GoArmyWestPoint.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Bucknell vs. Army Series Notes

The Bison hold a 59-24 lead in a series that dates back to 1929. Bucknell had won 12 straight meetings before the Black Knights captured the last three.
The Bison are 34-6 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 58 of 72 meetings.
In Patriot League Tournament action, Bucknell is 8-2 against Army. Eight of those 10 postseason meetings have come in the quarterfinals.
Bucknell had beaten the Black Knights seven straight times at Sojka Pavilion until Army won 96-89 in Lewisburg last season. In the highest-scoring game in series history, Bucknell received 28 points from Andrew Funk and a career-high 20 from Jake van der Heijden. Andre Screen added 17 on 8-for-9 shooting, and Xander Rice tallied 15, as that quartet accounted for 80 of the team's 89 points. Army also had two 20-point scorers, with Jalen Rucker (21) and Aaron Duhart (20) both hitting that mark.
Last year's rematch at Christl Arena was no quite as high-scoring, with Army prevailing 73-60. Rice scored a career-high 25 points for Bucknell, but Army used 21 from Rucker and a 39-24 rebounding advantage to secure the win.

Notable Numbers

Through 19 games in 2022-23, Bucknell has been much-improved defensively over last season, when the Bison struggled to get stops. Bucknell ranks No. 1 in the Patriot League in field-goal percentage defense, third in scoring defense, and fifth in 3-point defense.

Scoring Defense Opp. FG% Opp 3FG%
2021-22 79.4 .466 .373
2022-23 67.5 .417 .341

Bucknell has held nine of its 19 opponents under 40% from the field this season and is 7-2 in those games. Bucknell is 0-11 when the opponent shoots 40% or better.
The Bison are looking for additional scoring options, as the team has had only two double-digit scorers in each of the last seven contests.
Xander Rice was named Tournament MVP of the Ocean Bracket at the Sunshine Slam during Thanksgiving Week. On Dec. 18 against Merrimack, he was held to 11 points, but he did hand out nine assists without a turnover. Rice, who ranks fourth in the Patriot League in assist/TO ratio (1.8), is one of only 35 Division I players — Lafayette's CJ Fulton is the only other Patriot League player to do it — to log nine or more assists with no turnovers in a game this season, and he is only the fourth different Bison to do it in the last 18 years.

Last Time Out

Andre Screen matched his career high with 20 points, but Tucker Richardson scored 23 to help Patriot League-leading Colgate hold off Bucknell 71-65 on Saturday afternoon at Cotterell Court.
Xander Rice added 14 points and Alex Timmerman and Jack Forrest had nine each for the Bison. Oliver Lynch-Daniels supported Richardson with 13 points six rebounds and six assists to help keep Colgate unbeaten in the league while moving to 12-7 overall.
Bucknell played well for long stretches, but Colgate broke open a tight game with a 12-4 run about four minutes into the second half. Screen scored Bucknell's first six points of the stanza, with his short jumper giving the Bison a 38-37 lead. It was 40-40 after a baseline drive by Ian Motta, but back-to-back layups by Keegan Records got the Raiders going. The Bison still trailed by just a pair after Rice's pull-up jumper before Colgate scored the next six to go up 52-44. A 3-point play by Oliver Lynch-Daniels stretched the Raiders' lead into double figures for the first time at 59-48, and they would lead by as many as 13 on a Richardson layup with 5:09 to go.
The Bison hung around, and Colgate missed three straight front ends of 1-and-1s in the final minute. Bucknell was able to get as close as four at 69-65 after four straight free throws by Rice and Screen and a Rice 3-pointer. Chandler Baker made two free throws with five seconds to go to make the final margin six.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell returns home to face Holy Cross on Saturday at 2 p.m. The game will be televised locally on WQMY-TV and will also stream on ESPN+.
Bucknell fell 60-58 at Holy Cross on Dec. 30 in the first of two regular-season meetings between the two teams.

Men's Basketball Takes on Army Wednesday Night at West Point

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Andrew Funk

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden

Men's Basketball Takes on Army Wednesday Night at West Point

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Andrew Funk

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden

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