Men's Hoops Heads to Easton Sunday to Face Lafayette

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- On the heels of last season's remarkable three-game series, Bucknell and Lafayette renew acquaintances on Sunday afternoon at the Kirby Sports Center. It's a 1 p.m. tip, with coverage on ESPN+ and the Lafayette Sports Network.

The Bison and Leopards met three times last season, and all three went to overtime with bucketloads of dramatic shots featured in each contest. After the two teams split the regular-season series, Bucknell pulled out an 82-81 win in the first round of the Patriot League Tournament. In 135 minutes of action, Bucknell outscored Lafayette 246-244.

Sunday's game could be another close one between two teams desperate for a conference win after 0-3 starts. The Bison are coming off a 72-64 home loss to Lehigh, while the Leopards let a late lead get away in a 73-69 overtime loss at Boston University.

GAME DIGEST
What: Bucknell (7-9, 0-3 PL) at Lafayette (2-14, 0-3 PL)
Where: Kirby Sports Center, Easton, Pa.
When: Sunday, Jan. 8, 1 p.m.
Streaming: ESPN+
Local Radio: WVLY (100.9 FM)
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: GoLeopards.com
COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Elvin Edmonds IV (7.9 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.4 apg)
G: Xander Rice (15.1 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 4.2 apg)
F: Ian Motta (7.0 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 1.1 apg)
F: Alex Timmerman (12.3 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 1.6 apg)
C: Andre Screen (10.6 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.1 bpg)

With a Win over Lafayette, Bucknell Would ...

... snap a five-game losing streak and improve to 8-9 overall and 1-3 in the Patriot League.
... improve to 2-6 in true road games this season.
... improve to 147-39 against Patriot League opponents at Sojka Pavilion.
... defeat the Leopards for the third straight time and improve to 83-93 all-time against them.

Headlines

Bucknell and Lafayette meet Sunday in Easton in a matchup of two teams still searching for their first Patriot League wins. The Bison fell to 0-3 in conference play after a 72-64 loss at home to Lehigh on Thursday. Lafayette dropped a tough one on the road, 73-69 in overtime at Boston University. The Leopards had a 62-52 lead with less than four minutes remaining, only to see the Terriers score the final 10 points of regulation.
Remarkably, all three of last season's Bucknell-Lafayette games went to overtime. The teams split the two regular-season meetings, and then the Bison won 82-81 in Easton in the Patriot League Tournament first round.
Bucknell will see an old friend on Sunday, as former Bison standout Cameron Ayers '14 is now a member of the Lafayette coaching staff. Ayers was the 2014 Patriot League Player of the Year and was a key member of Bucknell's 2011 and 2013 PL championship squads. He is Bucknell's No. 10 all-time scorer with 1,526 career points.
After a strong offensive start to the season, the Bison have slumped in recent games. 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 seven contests, however, the Bison have struggled at the offensive end.

Bucknell Offense
PPG    FG%   3FG%
First 9 Games    75.6   .509   .399
Last 7 Games 60.8   .409   .280
Last 4 Games 58.3   .383   .216

Senior Alex Timmerman is coming off a career game against Lehigh. Timmerman pocketed 27 points, 21 coming in the second half, to go along with 10 rebounds and three assists. He hit a 3-pointer late in the game and finished 12-for-18 from the field. Timmerman joined some elite company among Bison who have recorded at least 27 points and 10 rebounds in a game. In the last 12 years, the only others to do it were Mike Muscala (seven times), Zach Thomas (five times), and John Meeks (twice).
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 15.1 ppg. Rice has scored in double figures in every game this season and 17 straight dating back to last year.

2022-23 Patriot League Scoring Leaders
1. Gerrale Gates, Holy Cross   17.6
2. Jalen Rucker, Army    15.7
3. Tucker Richardson, Colgate   15.3
4. Xander Rice, Bucknell 15.1
5. Walter Whyte, Boston U. 14.5

Lafayette is 2-14 overall under first-year head coach Mike Jordan. In the Leopards' final game before the start of Patriot League play, they routed La Salle 90-65 on the road. Their other win came at a neutral site, 55-50 over Central Connecticut State on Nov. 19.
Lafayette comes into Sunday's game ranked fourth in the league in scoring defense (68.6) but 10th in scoring offense (61.6). Despite some shooting struggles, the Leopards still feature two of the league's top 3-point marksmen in Leo O'Boyle (.405) and CJ Fulton (.422), who are both shooting better than 40% from the arc while combining for 67 treys. O'Boyle (11.6), Fulton (11.3) an Kyle Jenkins (11.1) are all scoring in double figures. The Bison will also need to keep an eye on 6'7" guard Eric Sonberg, who recorded only 13 points in non-conference play but has 42 in the three Patriot League contests, including a career-high 20 on Thursday at Boston University.
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-Lafayette game will be streamed on ESPN+ via the Lafayette Sports Network, with Gary Laubach and former Lafayette head coach John Leone on the call.
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 GoLeopards.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Bucknell vs. Lafayette Series Notes

Bucknell and Lafayette have met 175 times previously, making the Leopards Bucknell's second most-played opponent (the Bison have played Lehigh 183 times). Since the series began in 1915, Lafayette leads 93-82.
Since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, however, Bucknell has won 53 of 74 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 21-4 against Lafayette in Sojka Pavilion and 29-7 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.
Last season, there was high drama in all three meetings, with each requiring overtime.
In last season's first meeting, Neal Quinn's tiebreaking layup with 2.3 seconds left in overtime gave Lafayette a 74-72 win in Easton. Andrew 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, and Andre Screen tallied 18 points on 9-for-10 shooting. 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.
In round two at Sojka Pavilion, Funk beat the shot clock with an off-balance 3-pointer off an inbounds play with 5.9 seconds remaining, sending Bucknell to a wild 92-89 overtime win. Funk again finished with 20 points, while Xander Rice and Screen added 17 each. Quinn tallied 24 points and nine assists, while Brantley had 18 off the bench for Lafayette, which rallied from 17 points down to force overtime.
The rubber match came in the first round of the Patriot League Tournament back in Easton, and the Bison prevailed 82-81 in OT. Funk scored nine of his 21 points in the extra period, including the go-ahead layup with 16 seconds remaining. Screen, who finished with 16 points, grabbed two offensive rebounds on Bucknell's final possession of regulation, the latter a tip-in with four seconds remaining to force OT. Tyrone Perry led Lafayette with 22 points, followed by Quinn with 17 and Jenkins with 17.

Notable Numbers

Through 16 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, second in scoring defense, and fifth in 3-point defense.

Scoring Defense   Opp. FG%   Opp 3FG%
2021-22   79.4   .466     .373
2022-23   66.9    .410 .334

Bucknell has held nine of its 16 opponents under 40% from the field this season and is 7-2 in those games. Bucknell is 0-7 when the opponent shoots 40% or better.
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 (2.1), is one of only 31 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

Alex Timmerman scored a career-high 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, but Bucknell's long-distance shooting struggles continued in a 72-64 loss to Lehigh on Thursday night at Sojka Pavilion.
It was a game of runs, as both teams battled turnovers that led to extended dry spells. Bucknell bridged the halftime break with a 15-2 run to cut a 14-point deficit down to one at 34-33, but Lehigh quickly responded with a 14-2 surge to go back up by 13. The Bison shot back with a 9-2 run to get within six, only for the Mountain Hawks to score 11 of the next 13 to go up 61-46. Bucknell again got within six after a 12-3 spurt, but three straight layups by Tyler Whitney-Sidney closed it out for Lehigh.
Whitney-Sidney hit 10 of 13 shots in the game and finished with 23 points, seven rebounds, and five assists. Evan Taylor added 20 points and eight boards, and Keith Higgins Jr. tallied 12 points. Those three guards accounted for 55 of Lehigh's 72 points.
Xander Rice finished with 14 points, seven assists, and three steals for the Bison.
Bucknell came up with a season-high 11 steals in the game, but Lehigh had 14 as the two teams combined for 32 turnovers.
Timmerman connected on 12 of his 18 field goal attempts on the way to his sixth career double-double. He scored 21 of his 27 points in the second half, including 19 of Bucknell's final 28 points.
Bucknell was strong on the glass, outrebounding Lehigh 34-24. The Bison limited the Mountain Hawks to one offensive rebound and finished with a 12-0 edge in second-chance points.

Who's Got Next?

The Patriot League gets back to the Wednesday/Saturday flow this week after the holiday period necessitated a Friday/Monday/Thursday/Sunday start.
Bucknell hosts Loyola on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Like Bucknell and Lafayette, the Greyhounds are off to an 0-3 start in Patriot League play, and they will be on the road Sunday to face Holy Cross.

Men's Hoops Heads to Easton Sunday to Face Lafayette

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Elvin Edmonds IV

Andrew Funk

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Men's Hoops Heads to Easton Sunday to Face Lafayette

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Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

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