Men's Hoops Returns to Philadelphia to Face La Salle Tuesday Evening

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Bucknell heads back to Philadelphia for the second time in less than a week when the Bison take on La Salle at Tom Gola Arena on Tuesday night as part of Duke's Blue Devil Challenge. Note the 6:30 p.m. tip time, with streaming coverage on ESPN+ and the local radio call on The Valley 100.9 FM.

The Bison are looking to build on a satisfying 73-64 win at Niagara on Saturday. John Griffin's first head coaching win featured a number of player-of-the-game candidates. Noah Williamson (22 points, 11 rebounds) and Jack Forrest (11 points, 10 rebounds) both recorded their first career double-doubles. Elvin Edmonds IV controlled the flow with 15 points and six assists, and reserve guard Josh Bascoe enjoyed the best performance of his career with 15 points, including two of the biggest shots of the game in the closing minutes.

Bucknell will be looking for more of the same against an experienced La Salle team that is off to a 2-0 start with wins over Drexel and Northeastern. Fran Dunphy's squad is particularly strong in the backcourt, where Khalil Brantley and Jhamir Brickus make up one of the top guard tandems in the Atlantic 10. Brantley led the team in points per game (14.3), assists per game (4.1), steals per game (1.6), and minutes per game (33.7) last season, while Brickus paced the Explorers in field goal percentage at .473 while averaging 9.8 points per game and 32.8 minutes per game. Brickus is averaging 20.0 ppg through two games this season.

Bucknell's last trip to Philadelphia did not go as planned, as Penn piled up a 52-22 rebounding advantage in an 80-61 win at The Palestra last Wednesday. The Bison cleaned up that rebounding issue on Saturday at Niagara, outrebounding the Purple Eagles 36-16. That was the lowest rebounding total by a Bucknell opponent since the Bison held American to 16 boards in a 74-57 win at Sojka Pavilion during the 2005-06 season.

Following the La Salle game, the Bison will head down to Durham to face Duke on Friday evening. The 6 p.m. game will be televised on the ACC Network. The Blue Devils were ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press preseason poll. They dropped a home game to Arizona on Friday to fall to 1-1 on the season, and they will play Michigan State in the State Farm Champions Classic in Chicago on Tuesday before returning home to host Bucknell.

GAME DIGEST
What: Bucknell (1-2) at La Salle (2-0)
Where: Tom Gola Arena, Philadelphia, Pa.
When: Tuesday, Nov. 14, 6:30 p.m.
Streaming: ESPN+
Local Radio: The Valley (100.9 FM)
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: GoExplorers.com
COMPLETE GAME NOTES

With a Win over La Salle, Bucknell Would ...

... win its second straight game and level its season record at 2-2.
... avenge last season's loss to the Explorers and improve to 10-21 all-time against them.
... improve to 2-1 on the road this season.
... snap a three-game losing streak against teams from the Atlantic 10 dating back to a 2021-22 home win over La Salle.

Headlines

Fresh off its first victory of the 2023-24 season, Bucknell heads back out on the road on Tuesday night to face La Salle. This is game three in a four-game road stretch, and it is the team's second trip to Philadelphia in six days. The Bison fell to Penn at The Palestra last Wednesday.
This is also Bucknell's fourth game in the first eight days of the season. The Bison will be playing a school-record-tying nine games in the month of November.
This game, and the next two after it, are all part of the Blue Devil Challenge, Duke's in-season event played at campus sites. Bucknell heads to Duke on Friday and then hosts Southern Indiana the following Monday.
The Bison delivered first-year head coach John Griffin III his first head coaching win on Saturday night, defeating Niagara 73-64 at the Gallagher Center. Bucknell got out to a slow start for the third straight game, trailing by as many as nine, but this time the Bison were able to flip the game around. They outscored the Purple Eagles 16-4 in the final five minutes of the first half and then shot 58% in the second half.
Sophomore center Noah Williamson had a breakout game at Niagara, logging 22 points and 11 rebounds. Jack Forrest also had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds, and the guard tandem of Elvin Edmonds IV and Josh Bascoe both tallied 15 points.
Bascoe has been outstanding off the bench for the Bison thus far. He handed out eight assists on opening night against Delaware, he recorded his first career double-digit scoring game with 10 at Penn, and then he topped that with 15 points at Niagara. A dozen of those points came in the second half, when he hit two critical shots down the stretch and then iced it with two free throws with 31 seconds remaining.
Bucknell was outrebounded 52-22 at Penn last week and was -40 on the glass in its first two games of the season. The Bison got that corrected at Niagara, posting a dominant 36-16 edge on the boards. They had 10 offensive rebounds, which led to 17 second-chance points.
Bucknell will bring a heavy Philadelphia contingent to La Salle. Heading the list is Griffin, a Philadelphia native and graduate of Saint Joseph's Prep. Griffin, whose father John Griffin II is a former head coach at Saint Joseph's University, had spent the last four seasons as associate head coach at Saint Joe's before returning to his alma mater in March. Other Philly connections:
- Senior Jack Forrest (Lower Merion) and sophomore Quin Berger (Malvern/Westtown School) are both Saint Joseph's transfers. Forrest joined the Bison prior to last season and is the team's top returning scorer, while Berger is new to the squad this season. Berger's father, Seth, is the head basketball coach at Westtown, and his mother, Christelle, competed in track and field at Penn, held the school record in the 100m hurdles for 30 years, and is in the Big 5 Hall of Fame.
- Assistant coach Matt Griffin (John's younger brother) spent five seasons as head coach at Roman Catholic High School and also served as the school's athletic director for two seasons. Griffin was named the USA TODAY Coach of the Year in the state of Pennsylvania in 2018, and that season he also earned Coach of the Year honors from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Scholastic, and PIAA Class 6A. He also spent five seasons as the president of the Philadelphia Catholic League Coaches Association.
- Director of basketball operations Mike Walley is a Yardley native (Notre Dame H.S.) who was a two-sport athlete in basketball and baseball at TCNJ. He spent the last two years as a graduate assistant coach at Saint Joseph's before rejoining Griffin on the staff at Bucknell this season.
- uBucknell is just getting going in its 129th season of basketball, dating back to its first game on Feb. 14, 1896, a 16-14 victory over Lock Haven.
Bucknell is looking to rebound from a 12-20 season a year ago. The Bison went 5-13 in Patriot League play and fell 64-59 at American in the first round of the Patriot League Tournament.
The Bison were picked ninth in this year's Patriot League preseason poll, one spot ahead of Army West Point. Defending-champion Colgate was the preseason No. 1 pick. Griffin is one of five new head coaches in the Patriot League this season.
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 four straight sub-.500 seasons, something that has not happened since 2000-01 to 2003-04.
The Bison must replace their top three scorers in Xander Rice (14.1 ppg), Alex Timmerman (11.4 ppg), and Andre Screen (11.2 ppg), along with veteran forward Jake van der Heijden (3.3 ppg). Rice (Monmouth), Timmerman (Winthrop), and van der Heijden (North Florida) are all playing as fifth-year graduate students this year, while Screen is now at Butler.
In their place are incoming transfers Quin Berger (Saint Joseph's) and Pip Ajayi (Mercyhurst) and true freshmen Brandon McCreesh and Patrick O'Brien.
La Salle is off to a strong start at 2-0 with home wins over Drexel (67-61) and Northeastern (79-74). The Explorers host Southern Indiana on Saturday and visit Duke next Tuesday as part of the Blue Devil Challenge.
Jhamir Brickus led La Salle with 22 points in Saturday's win over Northeastern. The Explorers had 19 assists and only four turnovers in that game, and they were a perfect 12-for-12 from the foul line.
Brickus also had 18 points against Drexel and leads the team in scoring at 20.0 ppg. Anwar Gill (15.0) and Khalil Brantley (13.5) are also scoring in double figures.
The Explorers are led by head coach Fran Dunphy, the all-time winningest coach in Philadelphia Big 5 history. Dunphy is in his second season at La Salle after previous stops at Penn and Temple. He needs three more wins to become the 15th active NCAA Division I head coach to reach 600 wins.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-La Salle game will stream live on ESPN+. Kale Beers and Rich Tarr will be on the call from Tom Gola Arena.
Doug Birdsong is back for his 24th season as Bucknell's play-by-play announcer, and he will have the radio call on WVLY 100.9 FM in the Susquehanna Valley.
The audio feed is also available online free of charge via BucknellBison.com.
Live statistics can be accessed via GoExplorers.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Last Time Out

Noah Williamson had a career night with 22 points and 11 rebounds, Ontario native Josh Bascoe scored 12 of his career-high 15 points in key moments in the second half, and the Bucknell men's basketball team defeated Niagara 73-64 at the Gallagher Center on Saturday night. The Bison not only earned their first win of the season, but they also delivered the first head coaching win for John Griffin III.
The Bison also received major contributions from Elvin Edmonds IV, who had 15 points and six assists, and Jack Forrest, who logged his first double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Bucknell trailed by as many as nine points early in the game but made a run late in the first half to take the lead, and then the Bison shot 58.3% in the second half to take over the game.
Of vital importance was Bucknell flipping around two areas where it had struggled in the first two games of the season, which ended up as losses to Delaware and Penn. After being outrebounded 52-22 at The Palestra on Wednesday night, the Bison dominated the glass 36-16 against Niagara. Bucknell had also struggled a bit at the free-throw line, but went 13-for-15 in this one, including 10-for-10 in the final 4:12 after the Purple Eagles had cut a 12-point deficit down to four.

Bucknell vs. La Salle Series Notes

Bucknell and La Salle are former conference rivals in both the Middle Atlantic Conference and the East Coast Conference.
La Salle has a 21-9 lead in a series that dates all the way back to 1903, but the Bison have won three of the last five.
Bucknell won the very first meeting 45-17 in Lewisburg on March 7, 1903. Hall-of-Famer John Anderson and George Cheesman made 10 field goals apiece to lead Bucknell to victory. According to the Orange & Blue newspaper account, "The game started with a rush and Cheesman soon succeeded in landing a goal. During this half the teamwork was beyond reproach. Especially did the orange and blue do credit to herself in passing the sphere and in breaking up her opponents' team work. La Salle's passing, while good, was easily broken up by our men and at no time were they able to lose our five."
The Bison were 0-11 against La Salle on the Explorers' home floor until 2010-11, when Bucknell prevailed 89-77 behind 21 points from Mike Muscala.
La Salle won last year's meeting 82-72 at Tom Gola Arena, despite 20 points and 11 rebounds from Andre Screen and a career-high 18 points from Ian Motta. Bucknell trailed 58-54 before La Salle pulled away with a 16-7 run. Reserve guard Andres Marrero, who had 14 points all season, led the Explorers with 16 in this one.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell's four-game road stretch concludes on Friday at Duke. The 6 p.m. game will be televised on the ACC Network.
The Bison will be playing Duke for the fourth time. The last came in 2005-06, when the Blue Devils were ranked No. 1 in the nation. Duke won that one 84-50 and is 3-0 in the series.

Men's Hoops Returns to Philadelphia to Face La Salle Tuesday Evening

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Pip Ajayi

Josh Bascoe

Quin Berger

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Brandon McCreesh

Ian Motta

Patrick O'Brien

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden

Noah Williamson

Men's Hoops Returns to Philadelphia to Face La Salle Tuesday Evening

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Pip Ajayi

Josh Bascoe

Quin Berger

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Brandon McCreesh

Ian Motta

Patrick O'Brien

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden

Noah Williamson

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