Men's Basketball Hosts Colgate on Alumni Day, 1989 Championship Team to be Honored

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Bison men's basketball squad will look to build on Wednesday's road victory at Lehigh when three-time defending champion Colgate comes to Sojka Pavilion for a 3:30 p.m. tip. Tune in on ESPN+ or listen on The Valley 100.9 FM.

Saturday is Alumni Day at Sojka Pavilion, and among the guests of honor will be Hall-of-Fame coach Charlie Woollum and members of his 1989 East Coast Conference championship team. That squad, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, finished 23-8 and 11-3 in the ECC. The Bison defeated Rider, Hofstra (in OT), and Lafayette in the ECC Tournament at Towson, and then they fell to Syracuse in Dallas in the program's second NCAA Tournament appearance. That team had four Hall-of-Famers on the roster. Ted Aceto, Mike Butts, and Mike Joseph were all double-digit scorers, while Bill Courtney was a freshman just getting his brilliant career going. Two other double-digit scorers on the '89 squad were Greg Leggett and John Watson. Both tragically passed away in recent years, but the families of both Bison legends will be in attendance on Saturday.

Bucknell and Colgate are both off to 2-1 starts in Patriot League play and sit one game behind league-leading Lafayette. The Leopards defeated Colgate 69-64 in Hamilton on Wednesday night to improve to 3-0, while the Bison won 86-80 at Lehigh. Jack Forrest, the Patriot League's leading scorer at 15.9 points per game, scored a game-high 24 points, and Josh Bascoe scored 18 of his career-high 23 points in the first half, helping Bucknell to a 47-30 halftime lead. Noah Williamson also had a big night, recording a double-double with 18 points and a career-high 12 rebounds. Williamson was the go-to guy in crunch time. After Lehigh climbed back within three points with four minutes to play, Williamson scored Bucknell's next six points to preserve the lead.

After playing three of its first four Patriot League games at home, the Bison will be spending plenty of time on the road over the next several weeks. Starting with next Wednesday's game at Boston University, the squad will play five of its next seven away from home.

GAME DIGEST
What: Colgate (8-8, 2-1 PL) at Bucknell (5-11, 2-1 PL)
Where: Lewisburg, Pa., Sojka Pavilion | BUY TICKETS
When: Saturday, Jan. 13, 3:30 p.m.
Watch: ESPN+
Local Radio: The Valley 100.9 FM
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: BucknellBison.com
COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Josh Bascoe (10.4 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 4.5 apg)
G: Elvin Edmonds IV (9.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 3.1 apg)
G: Jack Forrest (15.9 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Ruot Bijiek (7.6 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 0.9 apg)
C: Noah Williamson (10.8 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 0.7 bpg)

With a Win over Colgate, Bucknell Would ...

... win its second straight game and improve to 6-11 on the season and 3-1 in Patriot League play.
... start 3-1 in the Patriot League for the first time since 2019-20.
... improve to 3-5 at home this season and 151-44 all-time against Patriot League foes at Sojka Pavilion.
... snap a six-game series losing streak to the Raiders and improve to 70-53 all-time against them.

Headlines

Coming off a season-high 86-point showing in a win at Lehigh on Wednesday, Bucknell faces another tough test on Saturday when three-time defending Patriot League champion Colgate visits Sojka Pavilion.
Both teams are 2-1 in the early stages of league play. Lafayette, which went 1-12 in its non-league schedule, is the lone 3-0 squad after winning at Colgate on Wednesday. Bucknell, Colgate, American, and Navy are all just one game off the lead.
Bucknell was held back by slow offensive starts in its first two Patriot League encounters, combining to shoot 28.6% from the field and 20.8% from the 3-point arc against Holy Cross and American. The Bison got out to a much better start at Lehigh on Wednesday, hitting nine of its first 10 shots on the way to a 47-30 halftime lead. Bucknell went on to set season highs for points (86) and made 3-pointers (11) in the six-point road victory.
Bucknell's Jack Forrest has reclaimed the Patriot League scoring lead (15.9 ppg) after posting 42 points in his last two games, including a game-high 24 at Lehigh. Forrest also leads the conference in made 3-pointers per game (2.8), and minutes per game (35.7), and he is a close second to Loyola's Deon Perry in free-throw percentage (.894).
Forrest, who played in his 100th career game last Saturday against American, is now on 1,000-point watch. He has 944 career points, including his stints at Columbia and Saint Joseph's.
Junior guard Josh Bascoe has continued his breakout season with 20-point games in two of the first three Patriot League contests. Bascoe scored a career-high 21 points in the win over Holy Cross, and then he surpassed that mark with 23 at Lehigh on Wednesday. In Bucknell's five wins this season, Bascoe is averaging 18.0 ppg while shooting 60.0% from the field (30-50), 55.6% from the 3-point arc (10-18), and 80.0% from the foul line (20-25).
Bascoe now ranks third in the league in minutes per game (32.1), despite playing reserve minutes in the first four games of the season. Since joining the starting lineup at Duke on Nov. 17, he is averaging 35.8 minutes per game. Prior to this season, he had played more than 19 minutes in a game only once.
Bucknell is in the midst of 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. 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.
Colgate has been the Patriot League's standard-bearer in recent years, claiming the last three titles and four of the last five. The Raiders went 17-1 in PL play last season, and then rolled past Loyola, Army, and Lafayette in the postseason. Colgate fell 81-61 to fifth-seeded Texas in Des Moines, Iowa in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Colgate graduated Patriot League Player of the Year Tucker Richardson and starting guard Oliver Lynch-Daniels, but the Raiders brought back most of the remainder of the roster, including fifth-years Keegan Records and Ryan Moffatt. Records was selected as this season's Preseason Patriot League Player of the Year.
The Raiders opened league play with wins over Loyola and Navy before falling 69-64 to Lafayette at Cotterell Court on Wednesday. Moffatt (17) and Records (13) were the team's top scorers in that game. Sophomore guard Braeden Smith has been the team's most productive player thus far, averaging 13.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 1.9 steals per game.

How to Get the Game

Saturday's game will be streamed live on ESPN+, with "Voice of the Bison" Doug Birdsong and former Bison assistant coach Terry Conrad calling the action from Stabler Arena.
Joe Vasile will have the local radio call on The Valley 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 BucknellBison.com.
Follow @Bucknell_MBB for in-game updates on Twitter.

Notable Numbers

After struggling in the turnover department at times during non-conference play, the Bison are averaging only 9.3 giveaways per game against Patriot League competition.
Jack Forrest and Josh Bascoe against Lehigh became the first Bison tandem to both score at least 23 points in a game since Nate Sestina (25) and Kimbal Mackenzie (23) did it against the Mountain Hawks in a 97-75 win in the 2019 Patriot League Tournament semifinals.
Bucknell has been strong from the free-throw line of late after a slow start to the season. The Bison are 133-161 (.826) from the stripe over the last eight games. Center Noah Williamson has been a big part of that resurgence, as he is 36-45 (.800) during that span.
Williamson ranks sixth nationally in free-throw percentage among all 7-footers with a minimum 2.5 makes per game.

Free-Throw Percentage, Players 7'0" or Taller
1. Quinten Post, Boston College   7-0   .820
2. Kennan Fitzmorris, Stony Brook   7-0   .800
3. Will Baker, LSU 7-0   .778
4. Branden Carlson, Utah 7-0   .754
5. Zach Edey, Purdue 7-4   .747
6. Noah Williamson, Bucknell 7-0   .733

Bucknell went 15-for-15 from the foul line against Radford on Dec. 16. That is tied for the sixth-most made free throws without a miss in team history. The record is 22-for-22 against Lafayette on Feb. 1, 1989.
Bucknell has shot the three much better at home (37.6%) than on the road (31.3%) this season.
Bascoe in the win over Penn State had 11 points, 10 assists, five rebounds, and three steals. The only other Bison besides Bascoe in the last 20 years to have a game with at least 10 points, 10 assists, five rebounds, and three steals was Steven Kaspar, who went 12-10-7-3 against Navy on Jan. 15, 2014.

Last Time Out

Josh Bascoe scored 18 of his career-high 23 points in the first half, Jack Forrest added 24, and Noah Williamson finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds with several critical plays down the stretch to lead Bucknell to an 86-80 win over Lehigh in Patriot League men's basketball action on Wednesday night at Stabler Arena.
Lehigh cut a 19-point deficit down to three on Nasir Whitlock's 3-pointer with 4:24 to go, but Williamson was the difference-maker for the Bison in crunch time. He made both ends of a 1-and-1 coming out of the under-4 media timeout, and then after Elvin Edmonds IV stood tall and absorbed a charge on big Burke Chebuhar, Williamson put back his own miss. After a defensive stop, Williamson powered in for two more in the paint to make it a 79-72 game with 2:33 to play.
The Bison came up with some big stops in the final two minutes and went 7-for-8 at the foul line to ice the victory.
Bucknell's best offensive output of the season was made possible by some efficient shooting. The Bison shot 49.1% from the field, they hit half of their 3-point attempts (11-22), and the Patriot League's best free throw-shooting team hit 21 of 25 (.840) from the charity stripe.

Bucknell vs. Colgate Series Notes

This will be the 123rd all-time meeting between Bucknell and Colgate in a series that dates back 104 years to 1920. The Bison have a 69-53 series lead. The only other opponents that Bucknell has played at least 100 times are Lehigh (185), Lafayette (177), Gettysburg (126) and Penn State (105).
As Patriot League rivals, Bucknell is 48-27, including 28-7 in Lewisburg.
These two teams recently met in back-to-back Patriot League championship games. Bucknell won 83-54 in the 2018 title tilt at Sojka Pavilion, and Colgate returned the favor with a 94-80 win at Cotterell Court in 2019.
Colgate has won six straight and nine of the last 10 in the series. Bucknell's last win was a 71-70 verdict at Sojka Pavilion late in the 2019-20 regular season.
Colgate won last year's first meeting 71-65 in Hamilton. Andre Screen matched his career high with 20 points for the Bison, but Tucker Richardson scored 23 for the Raiders. Colgate broke open a tight game with a 12-4 run about four minutes into the second half.
The Raiders pulled away in the second half and won 76-56 at Sojka Pavilion in game No. 2 last February. Bucknell employed a balanced scoring attack with 10 players making at least one field goal, but the Bison were held back by a wide disparity in turnovers. Screen recorded 10 points, six rebounds, and four blocked shots for the Bison. Richardson scored 16 of his 19 points in the first half, and Keegan Records scored 13 of his 17 in the second half to help the Raiders break open a tight game. Bucknell was down by only three at the half but turned the ball over on four of its first six possessions in the second half and 18 times overall, compared to only nine miscues by Colgate. That led to a 22-2 edge in points off turnovers and a 15-0 margin in fastbreak points for the Raiders.

who's got next?

Following the Colgate game, Bucknell will play its next two games and five of its next seven on the road.
First up is a Wednesday-night trip to Boston University. The Terriers are 6-10 overall and 1-2 in the Patriot League heading into a Saturday road trip to Loyola.