Men's Basketball Home Saturday Night vs. Army

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Bucknell looks to build on a strong performance in Wednesday's road win over American when Army comes to Sojka Pavilion on Saturday evening. The Bison are aiming for a season sweep of the Black Knights after winning 68-66 at West Point on Jan. 18. The contest will be televised on WQMY-TV in Northeast PA in addition to streaming on ESPN+.

Army is coming off consecutive wins over Holy Cross (66-55) and Lehigh (71-69). Wednesday's thriller in Bethlehem pulled the 7-4 Black Knights within a game of 8-3 Lehigh for second place in the Patriot League standings. Colgate is still perfect in league play at 11-0. Meanwhile, the Bison are trying to move out of the bottom spot in the table and are now just a game behind Boston University and Loyola for eighth place.

Saturday's game will feature a mascot game at halftime, sponsored by Red Robin. All members of the Junior Bison Club are invited to Bucky's Birthday Party, with a special giveaway and postgame autograph session planned.

Bucknell has seven games remaining in the regular season, four at home and three on the road. Next Saturday's home game against Colgate will be one of the highlights of the year, as the Bison will celebrate their annual Dirk Sojka's Slam Dunk event, with all proceeds going to SUNCOM Industries.

GAME DIGEST
What: Army (13-11, 7-4 PL) at Bucknell (9-15, 2-9 PL)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa.
When: Saturday, Feb. 4, 7 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 (14.8 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 3.6 apg)
G: Jack Forrest (8.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Ian Motta (5.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 0.7 apg)
F: Alex Timmerman (11.8 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 1.8 apg)
C: Andre Screen (10.7 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 1.1 bpg)

With a Win over Army, Bucknell Would ...

... win its second straight game and improve to 10-15 on the season.
... sweep the season series from the Black Knights for the first time since 2018-19.
... improve to 61-24 all-time against the Black Knights.
... snap a five-game home losing streak.

Headlines

Bucknell and Army meet for the second time this season when the Black Knights visit Sojka Pavilion on Saturday evening. The Bison won 68-66 at West Point on Jan. 8, thanks to two Andre Screen free throws with 0:02 remaining in the game.
Both of Bucknell's Patriot League wins have come on the road, with the latest coming on Wednesday night at American. The Bison broke out of a prolonged, team-wide shooting slump, hitting 55.6% from the field and 9 of 13 from the 3-point arc in a 78-71 win. Bucknell led by as many as 19 points in the second half before holding off a late Eagles flurry in the closing minutes.
Senior Xander Rice has broken out of a three-game scoring drought with back-to-back 20-point games. He tallied 21 points at Loyola last Saturday and then pumped in a season-high 23 against American on Wednesday. Rice, who ranks third in the Patriot League in scoring at 14.8 ppg, is now just 20 points shy of becoming the 45th 1,000-point scorer in Bucknell history.
Rice, who will play in his 103rd straight game, earlier this season became 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. That streak ended at Army on Jan. 18.
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 has averaged 14.2 ppg since joining the starting unit.
Ian Motta made the most of his return to the starting lineup on Wednesday at American. Motta had come off the bench in the previous four games and had combined for 16 points in the first 10 Patriot League games before exploding for 16 in the win over the Eagles. Motta is shooting 46.9% from the 3-point arc on the season.
Alex Timmerman has enjoyed a strong senior season playing both the 4 and 5 spots. Timmerman has seven or more rebounds in seven of the last 11 games and is the Patriot League's second leading rebounder at 6.8 per game. Offensively, he is 23-for-38 from the field over the last five games and has upped his season scoring average to a career-best 11.8 ppg.
Bison fans will see a familiar face on the visiting bench on Saturday, as Jesse Flannery — son of Bucknell Athletics Hall-of-Fame coach Pat Flannery — is in his first season on Jimmy Allen's coaching staff at Army. Jesse Flannery spent the 2021-22 season as an assistant at Division III Amherst after two years as a graduate assistant at VCU.
Army has been positioned near the top of the Patriot League standings throughout league play after jumping out to a 3-0 start. Now 7-4 in the PL, the Black Knights are alone in third place, one game behind Lehigh and one in front of American.
Army's loss to Bucknell on Jan. 18 ignited a three-game losing streak, but the Black Knights have responded with back-to-back wins over Holy Cross and Lehigh. The latter was a 71-69 thriller in Bethlehem on Wednesday, courtesy of a tiebreaking layup from Jared Cross with 5.4 seconds remaining.
Army features one of the league's best players in point guard Jalen Rucker, who is second in the league in scoring at 16.2 ppg. Rucker tallied 23 points (9-16 FG, 2-3 3FG) in the win at Lehigh, breaking out of a four-game shooting slump in which he went 1-for-16 from the 3-point arc. Rucker was 18-for-25 from the arc in the five previous games before going 0-for-5 against Bucknell.
The Black Knight have gotten important contributions from freshmen Ethan Roberts (12.0 ppg) and Coleton Benson (11.3 ppg). Roberts hurt the Bison with 17 points in the first meeting, including eight straight points in the final 1:11 to tie the game.
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 televised locally on WQMY-TV in the Sranton/Wilkes-Barre market. Adam Marco and Doug Walsh will have the TV call, while "Voice of the Bison" Doug Birdsong will be joined by former Bison assistant coach Terry Conrad on the call for the live stream on ESPN+.
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. Army Series Notes

The Bison hold a 60-24 lead in a series that dates back to 1929.
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 59 of 73 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 not 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.
In this year's first meeting back on Jan. 18 at Christl Arena, the insertion of Jack Forrest into the starting lineup paid immediate dividends. Forrest poured in a career-high 25 points and the Bison prevailed 68-66 after Andre Screen hit two free throws with two seconds to go. Bucknell was in the midst of one of its most complete performances of the season, leading by 17 midway through the second half against an Army team that came in with a 5-1 Patriot League record and six wins in its last seven. The Black Knights made a furious comeback, scoring 10 straight points to tie the game on an Ethan Roberts layup with 15 seconds left. The Bison ran a great play out of a timeout, as Screen rolled to the basket after setting a pick and took a nifty pass from Rice before drawing a foul going up.

Notable Numbers

Through 24 games in 2022-23, Bucknell has been much-improved defensively over last season, when the Bison struggled to get stops. Bucknell ranks No. 2 in the Patriot League in field-goal percentage defense and fifth in scoring defense.

Scoring Defense   Opp. FG%     Opp 3FG%
2021-22       79.4     .466 .373
2022-23 68.5    .431 .344

Bucknell has held nine of its 24 opponents under 40% from the field this season and is 7-2 in those games. Bucknell is 2-14 when the opponent shoots 40% or better, with Army (.433) and American (.500) the lone exceptions.
Jack Forrest needs three 3-point field goals for 100 in his career.
Xander Rice has 120 career 3-pointers and is now tied with Jason Vegotsky for 20th on Bucknell's all-time list.
Rice is also on 1,000-point watch, as he now has 980 in his career after scoring 43 in the last two games.
Rice's .849 career free-throw percentage would be the third-best in school history.
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 (1.5), is one of only 37 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.
Bucknell's "free throw defense" has been terrific this season. Opponents are shooting only 58.2% from the foul line at Sojka Pavilion, and their overall 64.9% mark on the season is seventh-lowest in the nation.

Last Time Out

Xander Rice led four Bucknell players in double figures with a season-high 23 points, sending the Bison to a 78-71 victory over American on Wednesday night at Bender Arena.
Ian Motta scored 16 points in his return to the starting lineup, Jack Forrest added 14 points, and Andre Screen had 10 to help the Bison snap a three-game losing streak.
Bucknell broke out of a team-wide shooting slump by hitting at a 55.6% clip on the night, including a stellar 9-for-13 from the 3-point arc. The Bison led by as many as 19 points midway through the second half and then hung on at the end after a few missed free throws and turnovers allowed American to creep as close as five in the final minute.
American (14-8, 6-5 PL) saw its two-game winning streak come to an end, despite shooting 50.0% from the field. The Eagles were just 4-for-15 from the 3-point arc but did plenty of damage on backdoor cuts out of their Princeton-style offense. AU scored 48 points in the paint to Bucknell's 32, but the Bison had a 20-10 edge in points off turnovers.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell visits Navy on Wednesday evening at Alumni Hall.
The Bison will be looking to avenge a 63-46 home loss to the Midshipmen on Jan. 25. Bucknell was held to 12 field goals and its lowest point total of the season in that one.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Jack Forrest

Andrew Funk

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Andre Screen

Alex Timmerman

Jake van der Heijden