Men’s Basketball Set for Saturday Exhibition at Mount St. Mary’s to Benefit Behan Strong Foundation

Saturday, October 28

Emmitsburg, Md.

4 p.m.

Bucknell University

Mount St. Mary's

Buy Tickets

Photo by: Lianne Garrahan

Men’s Basketball Set for Saturday Exhibition at Mount St. Mary’s to Benefit Behan Strong Foundation

10/26/2023 2:43:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Bucknell at Mount St. Mary's
When: Saturday, Oct. 28, 4 p.m.
Where: Knott Arena, Emmitsburg, Md.
Live Stats: MountAthletics.com

BUY TICKETS | SUPPORT BEHAN STRONG

With the start of the 2023-24 regular season just over a week away, Bucknell and Mount St. Mary's will meet up on Saturday at Knott Arena for a special charity exhibition game. Proceeds from the game will benefit "Behan Strong", a foundation set up to support Pat Behan '10, a former Bison standout player who was most recently the head boys' basketball coach at St. John's College High School in Washington, D.C. Pat is currently in a battle with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"The Bucknell men's basketball program cares deeply about Pat Behan, and we are committed to doing our part in helping him fight this terrible disease, which also comes with a tremendous financial burden," said Bucknell head coach John Griffin III. "On a personal note, I was his teammate and roommate at Bucknell. Pat is a special person, and this is a great opportunity for all of us as a community to help him out. Coach Engelstad is also a very close friend of Pat's, and I want to thank him and the Mount St. Mary's athletics staff for hosting this special game. We are fortunate that the NCAA allows opportunities to have events such as this to help out a cause, and the fight against ALS is something that is very important to both programs."

Behan's best season at Bucknell was his junior year, when he earned Second Team All-Patriot League honors and earned the Benton A. Kribbs Award as the team MVP. He led the team in scoring (13.8 ppg) and rebounding (6.8 rpg) that year. He had a torrid stretch late in the season when he recorded five straight 20-point games. Behan captained the team as a senior in 2009-10. In his career, he played in 119 of a possible 123 games and totaled 925 points.

Here are some other notes and notables pertaining to Saturday's game:

The contest marks the end of a busy off-season exhibition schedule for the Bison. The team went 3-0 on a tour of Italy in August and also hosted Buffalo in a closed scrimmage two weeks ago.
Bucknell opens its 2023-24 season at home on Monday, Nov. 6 against Delaware (BUY TICKETS), while Mount St. Mary's debuts the following night on the road at Maryland.
The Bison finished 12-20 last season and return 10 lettermen from that squad. Bucknell lost its top three scorers in Third Team All-Patriot League guard Xander Rice (14.1 ppg), forward Alex Timmerman (11.4 ppg, 7.2 rpg), and center Andre Screen (11.2 ppg, 5.6 rpg).
The top returning scorer is senior guard Jack Forrest, who missed the first part of last season with an injury before appearing in 22 games with 13 starts. Forrest averaged 10.1 ppg on the season and 10.9 ppg in league play. He had a couple of 25-point games in wins over Army and American.
Bucknell has four newcomers this season, including two transfers. Junior forward Pip Ajayi comes to Bucknell from Mercyhurst, while sophomore guard Quin Berger, like Forrest, is a Saint Joseph's transfer. Berger and Forrest both played under Griffin when he was an assistant coach with the Hawks.
The two true freshmen are guard Brandon McCreesh and forward Patrick O'Brien.
Bucknell will have an experienced backcourt with the senior Forrest and juniors Elvin Edmonds IV and Josh Bascoe. The frontcourt will be considerably younger, with sophomores Noah Williamson and Ruot Bijiek primed for bigger roles, along with the transfer Ajayi.
Griffin is starting his first year as a head coach. He played at Bucknell from 2004-08 and was a key member of the Bison teams that won Patriot League titles and NCAA Tournament first-round games in 2004 and 2005. He was an assistant coach at Bucknell from 2014-18 before joining Billy Lange's staff at Saint Joe's.
Mount St. Mary's went 13-20 overall and 8-12 in its first season as a member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The Mountaineers defeated Canisius 67-66 in the first round of the MAAC Tournament in Atlantic City, then fell to top-seeded Iona 74-54 in the quarterfinals.
Dan Engelstad's squad was picked seventh out of 11 teams in this year's MAAC preseason poll. Senior Dakota Leffew, who averaged 13.1 ppg last season, was a Preseason All-MAAC First Team selection.
Bucknell and Mount St. Mary's have met 24 times in official regular-season games, dating all the way back to 1912. The Bison lead the series 13-11, including an 81-65 home win in the most recent meeting on Dec. 19, 2016.