Men's Basketball Hosts Lafayette on Senior Day

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The final game of the 2022-23 Patriot League regular season is upon us, and Bucknell hosts Lafayette in one of five Saturday games on the schedule. It will be Senior Day at Sojka Pavilion, as shortly before the 2 p.m. tip the program will honor seniors Xander Rice, Alex Timmerman, and Jake van der Heijden, along with manager Caleb Wooten.

Bucknell is locked into the No. 10 seed in the Patriot League Tournament and will travel to the No. 7 seed for a first-round game on Tuesday night. The identity of that opponent is still very much in doubt, as only one game separates fifth through ninth in the standings entering the final day. Lafayette is one of four teams tied for fifth at 7-10, and the Leopards can clinch a top-six seed -- and avoid playing a first-round game on Tuesday -- with a win in Lewisburg, Lafayette, American, Holy Cross, and Boston University are all possible first-round opponents for Bucknell.

GAME DIGEST
What: Lafayette (9-21, 7-10 PL) at Bucknell (11-19, 4-13 PL)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa.
When: Saturday, Feb. 25, 2 p.m.
Streaming: ESPN+
Local Radio: The Valley (100.9 FM)
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: BucknellBison.com
TICKETS
COMPLETE GAME NOTES
DIGITAL GAME PROGRAM

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Xander Rice (14.2 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 3.6 apg)
G: Jack Forrest (9.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 1.4 apg)
F: Ian Motta (4.8 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 0.6 apg)
F: Jake van der Heijden (3.1 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 0.3 apg)
C: Alex Timmerman (11.4 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 1.6 apg)

With a Win over Lafayette, Bucknell Would ...

... gain a split of the season series with the Leopards and finish the regular season with a 12-19 record.
... level its home record at 7-7 on the season.
... improve to 149-43 all-time against Patriot League opponents at Sojka Pavilion.
... improve to 22-4 against the Leopards at Sojka Pavilion.

Headlines

Bucknell and Lafayette get together on Saturday afternoon on the final day of the regular season. The Bison will celebrate Senior Day prior to the game, honoring Xander Rice, Alex Timmerman, and Jake van der Heijden.
Bucknell's Patriot League Tournament seed is set in stone. The Bison will be the No. 10 seed and will play a first-round game on the road on Tuesday night against one of four possible opponents: Lafayette, American, Holy Cross, or Boston University.
Lafayette, meanwhile, comes into Saturday's game mired in a four-way tie for fifth place with American, Holy Cross and Boston University, all at 7-10. The Leopards can still finish anywhere from fifth to ninth, but a win on Saturday at Bucknell would assure them of no worse than the No. 6 seed, which would mean a bye into the quarterfinals.
If the recent trend continues, Saturday's game could take awhile. The last four Bucknell-Lafayette games have gone to overtime — all three last season as well as this year's first meeting in Easton on Jan. 8. Going back even farther, seven of the last 19 meetings have required OT.
Bucknell will see an old friend on Saturday, 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.
The Bison are looking to bounce back from a couple of road losses to Boston University and Lehigh over the last week. They were done in by a 1-for-13 shooting start at Lehigh on Wednesday, and the Mountain Hawks led wire-to-wire in a 78-62 verdict that secured them a top-three seed.
Rice became the 45th member of Bucknell's 1,000-point club on Feb. 8 at Navy. He entered the game needing only three points for 1,000 and hit the mark with a deep 3-pointer about six minutes into the contest. Rice has ranked among the league's top scorers all season and is currently seventh at 14.2 ppg.
Jack Forrest entered the starting lineup for the first time at Army and had a huge night. The Saint Joseph's transfer matched his career high with 25 points, including 18 in a sensational first half, in the 68-66 win at West Point. Forrest finished 9-for-15 from the field and 5-for-7 from 3-point distance. His previous 25-point game came against La Salle while playing for Saint Joseph's in 2021. Forrest enjoyed another 25-point night against American and had 18 at Lehigh on Wednesday. He has averaged 13.5 ppg since joining the starting unit.
Timmerman had his second straight big game against Lehigh on Wednesday, finishing with 19 points and 12 rebounds. In the first meeting with the Mountain Hawks on Jan. 5, he scored a career-high 27 points with 10 rebounds, giving him 46 points and 22 boards in those two games. Timmerman enters Saturday's game second in the league in rebounding at 7.1 per game.
Lafayette is looking to shake a three-game losing streak, although the Leopards had first-place Colgate on the ropes on Wednesday before the Raiders prevailed 73-69. Sophomore center Justin Vander Baan, who has come on in recent weeks, scored a career-high 23 points in that game. Vander Baan had not scored in double figures until Feb. 1 at Navy, but has since done so in six of the last seven games.
Leo O'Boyle leads Lafayette in scoring at 11.3 ppg, followed by CJ Fulton at 10.4 ppg. The Leopards have struggled from 3-point range this season, but not that duo, which is shooting 39.5% and 38.5%, respectively. Fulton also ranks second in the Patriot League in assists (5.1) and steals (2.0).
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 has been 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+, with "Voice of the Bison" Doug Birdsong and former Bison assistant coach Terry Conrad on the call from Sojka Pavilion.
Kevin Foedinger 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 BucknellBison.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Bucknell vs. Lafayette Series Notes

Bucknell and Lafayette have met 176 times previously, making the Leopards Bucknell's second most-played opponent (the Bison have played Lehigh 184 times). Since the series began in 1915, Lafayette leads 94-82.
Since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, however, Bucknell has won 53 of 75 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.
The two teams made it four straight OT games when Lafayette won 74-67 in Easton back on Jan. 8. The Bison led 60-49 after an Alex Timmerman layup with 11:29 to play, but then went 1-for-18 from the field the rest of the way, including overtime. Rice finished with 19 points and Timmerman had 16 and nine rebounds for the Bison, while Leo O'Boyle tallied 24 and Josh Rivera 18 for the Leopards.

Last Time Out

Alex Timmerman posted his second straight double-double with 19 points and 12 rebounds, but Bucknell could not overcome a frosty start in a 78-62 loss to Lehigh on Wednesday night at Stabler Arena.
Jack Forrest scored 14 of his 18 points in the second half, and Xander Rice added 16 points for the Bison.
Lehigh had five players score in double figures, led by Tyler Whitney-Sidney with 20 points. Keith Higgins Jr. tallied 15 points, Evan Taylor had 10, and the post duo of JT Tan and Dominic Parolin tallied 11 each.
Lehigh led wire-to-wire, as the Bison were thwarted by a 1-for-13 shooting start. The Mountain Hawks ran out to an early 12-2 advantage and led 36-23 at halftime, despite 10 points and seven rebounds from Timmerman.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell will be on the road for a Patriot League Tournament first-round game at the No. 7 seed on Tuesday night. The opponent will not be determined until Saturday but could be Lafayette, American, Holy Cross, or Boston University.

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Players Mentioned

Jack Forrest

Andrew Funk

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden