Men's Hoops Looks to Stay Hot when Loyola Visits Sojka Pavilion Wednesday Night

The next BUCKNELL BASKETBALL LUNCHEON is set for this Thursday at noon at the Bull Run Tap House in Lewisburg. Join head coaches John Griffin III and Trevor Woodruff, along with members of the men's and women's teams, for lunch and discussion about the season.

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Bucknell men's basketball team, winners of two straight and three of its last four games, returns home on Wednesday evening to face Loyola in the final game of the first half of the Patriot League schedule. The 7 p.m. tip will stream live on ESPN+, with local radio coverage on The Valley 100.9 FM.

Bucknell swept the two service academies last week to improve to 5-3 in the Patriot League. The Bison are tied for third place alongside American, two games behind co-leaders Lafayette and Colgate. Loyola is tied for ninth place at 2-6, but the Greyhounds are feeling good after an impressive 74-70 road win over Navy on Saturday.

Wednesday's tilt features two of the Patriot League's top scorers. Bucknell's Jack Forrest continues to lead the league in scoring at 16.7 points per game. Forrest had 24 points against Navy at Sojka Pavilion last Wednesday and 14 in the win over Army on Saturday, and he earned Patriot League Player of the Week honors on Monday. Loyola sophomore Deon Perry is the league's third-leading scorer at 16.0 ppg. Perry poured in 30 against Navy, his second 30-point game of the month, and his 20.6 ppg average in PL games ranks No. 1.

Perry topped the 20-point mark in both meetings last season, as Loyola swept the season series from the Bison for the first time. Bucknell is 20-7 all-time against the Greyhounds and will look to break that two-game slide on Wednesday.

GAME DIGEST
What: Loyola (4-17, 2-6 PL) at Bucknell (8-13, 5-3 PL)
Where: Sojka Pavilion, Lewisburg, Pa. | BUY TICKETS
When: Wednesday, Jan. 31, 7 p.m.
Watch: ESPN+
Local Radio: The Valley 100.9 FM
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: BucknellBison.com
COMPLETE GAME NOTES

With a Win over Loyola, Bucknell Would ...

... improve to 6-3 in the Patriot League and 9-13 overall.
... build its first three-game winning streak since January 2021.
... improve to 4-6 at home this season (3-2 in PL) and 152-45 all-time against PL foes in Sojka Pavilion.
... snap a two-game losing streak to the Greyhounds and avoid a first-ever three-game skid in the series.
... pick up win No. 1,497 in team history.

Headlines

Two teams coming off road wins square off on Wednesday night when Bucknell hosts Loyola for the first of two 2024 meetings. The game marks the midway point of the Patriot League schedule, as all 10 teams will have played nine of their 18 league games by the end of the day on Wednesday.
Bucknell alternated wins and losses throughout the first seven Patriot League contests but finally broke that trend in a positive way last week. The Bison downed Navy at home and Army on the road for its first two-game winning streak of the season, and at 5-3 in the league they have climbed into a tie for third place, two games behind co-leaders Lafayette and Colgate.
Loyola is 2-6 in the Patriot League, with its two wins also coming against the two service academies, both on the road. The Greyhounds halted a four-game slide with a 74-70 win at Navy on Saturday.
Bucknell has put together some very good stretches of basketball in Patriot League play. The Bison have built leads of 16 or more points in six of the eight PL games thus far. Bucknell has rarely trailed over the last four games, holding the lead during 93.6% of those contests and trailing for only 1.4%. The Bison might be looking at a four-game winning streak, but Lafayette somehow stole one in overtime despite leading for only 47 seconds of the 45 minutes.

Time in the Lead, Last 4 Games
Jan. 27 at Army      Bucknell    36:40   Army     1:21
Jan. 24 vs. Navy Bucknell    38:26   Navy   1:09
Jan. 20 at Lafayette   Bucknell    41:00   Lafayette   0:47
Jan. 17 at Boston U.   Bucknell    38:22   Boston U.    0:00

Jack Forrest earned his second Patriot League Player of the Week nod on Monday. The league's leading scorer notched 20 of his game-high 24 points in the second half in last week's 71-63 win over Navy, marking his sixth 20-point game of the season. Forrest, who scored his 1,000th career point earlier this month at Lafayette, also leads the league in made 3-pointers (2.7) and minutes played (36.1), while ranking second in free-throw percentage (.831) and fourth in 3-point percentage (.393). Forrest's minutes average is now up to 14th-most in the nation.
Noah Williamson exploded for 23 points, 16 rebounds, and three blocked shots, all career highs, against Lafayette, and he followed it up with a 14-point outing against Navy. His 16 rebounds were the most by a Bucknell player since Nate Sestina grabbed 17 against Army in 2019. He also became just the third Bison in the last 15 years to collect at least 20 points and 15 rebounds in a game, joining former Patriot League Players of the Year Mike Muscala (4x) and Zach Thomas. The 16 rebounds are also tied for the most by any PL player this year, joining Navy's Donovan Draper, who grabbed 16 against George Washington on Dec. 5.
Senior Josh Adoh has been a role player throughout most of his career, but he has started the last three games in place of injured guard Josh Bascoe. Adoh gave the Bison a big early lift against Navy, scoring 10 of the team's first 25 points. He finished with a season-high 10 along with five rebounds, four assists, and two steals. On Saturday at Army, it was Ian Motta's turn to produce his best game of the season, as the junior tallied a team-high 17 points and six rebounds.
Loyola rode Deon Perry's 30-point effort to a 74-70 road win over Navy on Saturday. Sophomore Garrett Brennan added 15 points in his first career start, including a dagger 3-pointer late in the shot clock with three minutes to play. Those two guards combined to go 8-for-12 from 3-point distance, and Loyola dominated Navy on the glass, 41-25.
Perry is the Patriot League's No. 3 scorer 16.0 ppg, and fueled by 30-point games in the wins over Army and Navy, his 20.6 ppg average in league play is the best in the loop. Perry did major damage against Bucknell last season, scoring 22 and 20 points in the Greyhounds two victories.
Loyola has three veteran, international big men up front in Milos Ilic (8.4 ppg, 5.3 rpg), Golden Dike (7.8 ppg, 7.0 rpg), and Alonso Faure (7.5 ppg, 5.3 rpg). All three stand 6'10" and shoot better than 50% from the field. Dike recorded the second triple-double in Patriot League history earlier this season against Lehigh. Ilic missed all of last season with an injury, but in his last game at Sojka Pavilion in 2022 he hit four 3-pointers and scored 17 points.
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.

How to Get the Game

The Bucknell-Loyola game will be streamed live on ESPN+. "Voice of the Bison" Doug Birdsong and former assistant coach Terry Conrad will call the action from Sojka Pavilion.
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

Bucknell has reversed its rebounding fortunes since the start of Patriot League play. In 13 non-conference games, the Bison had a -3.7 average rebounding margin and grabbed only 28.8 boards per game. Against PL foes, the Bison are +3.9 on the glass while pulling down 36.9 rebounds per game.
Bucknell has been the Patriot League's best free-throw shooting team all season, but the Bison have struggled a bit in the last two games, hitting 22 of 35 (.629).
Bucknell's season FT% is 75.1%, which still leads the Patriot League and ranks 51st nationally.
Bucknell went 15-for-15 from the foul line against Radford on Dec. 16 and 13-for-13 from the stripe at Boston University last Wednesday. The Bison are one of only three Division I teams to have two perfect free-throw shooting games with at least 10 attempts, joining Wisconsin (14-14 vs. Michigan State; 12-12 vs. Providence) and Stetson (12-12 vs. Johnson; 11-11 vs. Charlotte).
In Patriot League play, Bucknell ranks second in scoring (71.8), first in 3-point percentage (.392), and first in free-throw percentage (.756).
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.
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.
Elvin Edmonds' line of 12 points, 10 assists, and seven rebounds at Boston University was also the first such game since Kaspar's 2014 performance at Navy.
Edmonds is the first Bison to record two double-digit assist games in a season since Jimmy Sotos in 2018-19. Sotos did it in back-to-back games that year, recording 12 assists in a win over UNLV at the Diamond Head Classic and then 11 one game later in a win at Army.

Last Time Out

Ian Motta scored a season-high 17 points off the bench to spark Bucknell to a 66-56 win over Army West Point on Saturday afternoon at Christl Arena. Jack Forrest added 14 points, Ruot Bijiek tallied 11, and Elvin Edmonds IV handed out 10 assists to help the Bison win a second straight game and improve to 5-3 in the Patriot League.
Abe Johnson and Ryan Curry tallied 14 points each, and Johnson added 10 rebounds for the Black Knights, who dropped to 2-6 in league play.
Bucknell followed a similar script from its previous three games, when it led for more than 94 percent of the time in wins over Boston University and Navy along with an overtime loss at Lafayette. This time around the Bison were once again the aggressors right from the jump. Even though they missed some close-range buckets in the early going, the Bison built a 16-point first-half lead, withstood an Army run in each half, and ultimately led for 36:40 of the 40 minutes..
Bucknell outrebounded Army 39-35, including 12 offensive boards that led to 17 second-chance points, and held a 32-22 edge in points in the paint. The Bison shot 41.7% from the field and went 9-for-23 from the arc. Army finished at 33.3% overall and 8-for-30 from deep.
A big key for the Bison was limiting Army's top scorer Josh Scovens to two points, although he did have five assists and five rebounds.
Edmonds recorded his second double-figure assist game of the month, as he also dished out 10 in a win at Boston University. He had eight assists in the first half alone and ended up setting up 10 of the team's 25 field goals. Bucknell had 18 assists with only nine turnovers on the day, with center Noah Williamson adding a career-high five helpers.

Bucknell vs. Loyola Series Notes

The Bison and Greyhounds have met 27 times previously. Bucknell leads 20-7 in the series, including a 14-5 mark since Loyola joined the Patriot League in 2013-14, but the Greyhounds have captured four of the last five.
Bucknell is 9-4 all-time at Loyola's Reitz Arena and 11-3 at home (2-0 in Davis Gym, 9-3 at Sojka Pavilion). The Bison had won the last nine in Lewisburg until Loyola won 67-57 last season.
The first series meeting came on Jan. 7, 1987 in Lewisburg. The Bison prevailed that day 72-70. A year later Bucknell won 80-60 on Loyola's home floor.
Bucknell and Loyola played twice within the 1992-93 season. The Bison won 75-59 in Baltimore, and in late February at Davis Gym the Bison rolled to a 116-85 victory. In the latter game, the Bison produced what was then their second-highest point total in program history, led by an incredible 9-for-10 3-point shooting performance by Hall-of-Famer Mike Bright.
Loyola swept the season series for the first time in 2022-23.
In last season's first meeting at Sojka Pavilion, Loyola led wire-to-wire in a 67-57 verdict. Then-freshman guard Deon Perry enjoyed the best game of his young career, finishing with 22 points on 7 of 13 shooting, including 5 of 10 from 3-point range. Xander Rice had 18 points to lead the Bison, who were held to 36.7% shooting on the night.
In the rematch at Reitz Arena, Jaylin Andrews (24) and Perry (20) both hit the 20-point mark to offset a 21-point game from Rice, and the Greyhounds pulled away late for an 80-66 verdict, Jack Forrest tallied 13 points, six rebounds, and six assists for the Bison, who shot 42.4% and hit nine 3-pointers but could not overcome 20 turnovers.

Who's Got Next?

The Bison head south for their next two games, traveling to American on Saturday and Navy next Wednesday.
The second half of the Patriot League schedule starts Saturday, as Bucknell looks to avenge a 71-63 home loss to American back on Jan. 6.

Men's Hoops Looks to Stay Hot when Loyola Visits Sojka Pavilion Wednesday Night

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Josh Adoh

Josh Bascoe

Ruot Bijiek

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Noah Williamson

Men's Hoops Looks to Stay Hot when Loyola Visits Sojka Pavilion Wednesday Night

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Josh Adoh

Josh Bascoe

Ruot Bijiek

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Ian Motta

Xander Rice

Noah Williamson

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