Men's Basketball Heads to Lehigh Wednesday Evening

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Longtime in-state rivals Bucknell and Lehigh meet for the 185th time on Wednesday evening at Stabler Arena. The 7 p.m. game can be seen on ESPN+, and fans in the Susquehanna Valley can listen on the radio on The Valley 100.9 FM.

We are just one week into Patriot League play, and the Bison and Mountain Hawks are two of the four teams with 1-1 records, along with the two service academies. American, Colgate, and Lafayette are all 2-0 -- American's wins are against Lehigh and Bucknell -- while Boston University, Holy Cross, and Loyola are off to 0-2 starts. The Bison opened Patriot League play with a 70-57 home win over Holy Cross, buoyed by Josh Bascoe's 21 points and a big second-half performance. This past Saturday against American, the Bison got out to a slow start offensively and were unable to get over the hump despite trimming a 12-point deficit down to four on a couple of occasions. Jack Forrest, who once again leads the Patriot League in scoring at 15.4 points per game, paced Bucknell with 18 against the Eagles.

Lehigh bounced back from its 75-66 loss at American with an 88-76 win at Loyola on Saturday. Already without starting forward Dominic Parolin, the Mountain Hawks then lost All-Patriot League guard Keith Higgins Jr. to an injury just over two minutes into the game against the Greyhounds. But senior Jalin Sinclair picked up the slack, scoring a career-high 30 points on 12-for-15 shooting, to go with 25 points from backcourt mate Tyler Whitney-Sidney and 14 from freshman guard Joshua Ingram.

Wednesday's game kicks off a stretch where Bucknell will play six of its next nine games on the road, however the Bison will play at home again on Saturday against three-time defending Patriot League champion Colgate at 3:30 p.m. That will be Alumni Day at Sojka Pavilion. Among the alums set to be honored are the members of the 1989 East Coast Conference championship squad, who are celebrating their 35th anniversary this year.

GAME DIGEST
What: Bucknell (4-11, 1-1 PL) at Lehigh (4-9, 1-1 PL)
Where: Bethlehem, Pa., Stabler Arena
When: Wednesday, Jan. 10, 7 p.m.
Watch: ESPN+
Local Radio: The Valley 100.9 FM
Internet Audio: BucknellBison.com
Live Stats: LehighSports.com
COMPLETE GAME NOTES

Bucknell Tentative Starters
G: Josh Bascoe (9.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 4.7 apg)
G: Elvin Edmonds IV (10.0 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 3.2 apg)
G: Jack Forrest (15.4 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Ruot Bijiek (7.8 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 1.0 apg)
C: Noah Williamson (10.3 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 0.7 bpg)

With a Win over Lehigh, Bucknell Would ...

... improve to 5-11 on the season and 2-1 in Patriot League play.
... improve to 3-6 on the road this season.
... snap a four-game series losing streak to the Mountain Hawks and improve to 112-73 all-time against them.

Headlines

Two teams off to 1-1 starts in the Patriot League will get together on Wednesday night at Stabler Arena. Bucknell and Lehigh have both dropped games to American. The Bison have a win over Holy Cross, while the Mountain Hawks are coming off a win at Loyola. While both of Bucknell's PL contests have come at home, both of Lehigh's have been on the road.
Bucknell will be looking to get off to a better start on Wednesday. In both Patriot League games thus far the Bison have struggled offensively in the first half before heating up in the second.

First Half   Second Half
FG   3FG   Pts    FG      3FG    Pts
16-56 (.286)   5-24 (.208)   43 (21.5)   31-60 (.517)   14-29 (.483)   90 (45.0)

The Bison will be facing the league's highest-scoring team for the second game in a row. American came into Saturday's game leading the Patriot League in scoring average at 73.8 ppg. Lehigh jumped the Eagles to 74.5 ppg after hanging 88 on Loyola on Saturday. The Mountain Hawks are third in the league in field-goal percentage (.445), and they are the only team in the league averaging better than 60 shot attempts per game (62.5).
Bucknell's Jack Forrest reclaimed the Patriot League scoring lead (15.4 ppg) after posting 18 against American on Saturday. Lehigh's Keith Higgins Jr. had been in the top spot, but he dropped to third after leaving Saturday's game at Loyola with an injury in the opening minutes. Forrest also leads the conference in free-throw percentage (.878), made 3-pointers per game (2.7), and minutes per game (35.7).
Forrest, who played in his 100th career game on Saturday, is now on 1,000-point watch. He has 920 career points, including his stints at Columbia and Saint Joseph's.
Junior guard Josh Bascoe continued his breakout season with a career-high 21 points against Holy Cross in the Patriot League opener last Wednesday. He kept the Bison in the game when they were struggling offensively in the first half. Bascoe started 5-for-7 from the field while the rest of the team was just 2-for-19 at that time. Since joining the starting lineup at Duke on Nov. 17, he is averaging 35.1 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.
Lehigh finished 16-14 overall and 11-7 in the Patriot League a year ago. The Mountain Hawks were the No. 3 seed in the Patriot League Tournament but were upset by rival Lehigh in the quarterfinal round, 71-64.
The Mountain Hawks have won two of their last three games, starting with a good non-league road win over a Marist team that defeated Bucknell earlier in the year. The only other common non-league opponent was Penn State (Bucknell W, Lehigh L).
Lehigh features one of the league's top backcourts with veterans Higgins (15.1 ppg), Tyler Whitney-Sidney (14.7 ppg), and Jalin Sinclair (8.3 ppg) leading the way. Whitney-Sidney in Patriot League play is averaging 25.5 ppg while hitting 21-for-35 from the field and 5-for-11 from 3-point range. Sinclair filled in the scoring gap and then some after Higgins went down with the injury two minutes into the Loyola game. Sinclair poured in 30 points on 12-for-15 shooting, surpassing his previous season high of 13 points against Cornell.

How to Get the Game

Wednesday's game will be streamed live on ESPN+, with Matt Markus calling the action from Stabler Arena.
"Voice of the Bison" Doug Birdsong will handle 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 LehighSports.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 7.0 giveaways per game against Patriot League competition.
Jack Forrest went 41-for-106 (.387) from 3-point range in 22 appearances last season, and through 15 games this year he is exactly 41-for-106 from the arc.
Josh Bascoe is one of only 32 players in the nation with at least four games of eight or more assists this season.
Bucknell has been strong from the free-throw line of late after a slow start to the season. The Bison are 112-136 (.824) from the stripe over the last seven games. Center Noah Williamson has been a big part of that resurgence, as he is 30-36 (.833) 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   .769
4. Branden Carlson, Utah    7-0   .754
5. Zach Edey, Purdue 7-4   .752
6. Noah Williamson, Bucknell    7-0   .745

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 (29.0%) 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

American freshman Matt Mayock scored 17 of his game-high 20 points in the second half, offsetting an 18-point game from Bucknell's Jack Forrest, and the Eagles held off the Bison 71-63 on Saturday afternoon at Sojka Pavilion.
Both teams were coming off wins on the opening night of Patriot League play, and it was American moving to 2-0 by emerging from a key late-game sequence. The Bison had trimmed a 12-point deficit down to five after a Josh Bascoe layup with 4:40 to go. After an American timeout, Bucknell forced a shot clock violation, and then Forrest had a 3-pointer rim in and out. That would have made it a two-point game, but instead Lorenzo Donadio hit a three in transition at the other end. The six-point swing gave the Eagles a 63-55 lead. The Bison followed with three more empty possessions and American used a free throw from Jermaine Ballisager Webb and a dagger three at the end of the shot clock from Matt Rogers to make it a 12-point game with 2:30 to go.
Elvin Edmonds IV joined Forrest in double figures with 10 points. Forrest went 4-for-9 from 3-point range and also led the team with six rebounds. The Bison finished with a slim 34-33 edge on the glass and led 13-3 in second-chance points.
Donadio (11), Geoff Sprouse (11), and Rogers (10) all hit double figures for the Eagles, who committed only three turnovers in the game.
Both teams shot better than 50% in the second half and finished with double-digit 3-pointers. American shot 46.6% overall and went 11-for-25 from the 3-point arc. Bucknell finished at 42.9% and hit 10-for-25 from deep.

Bucknell vs. Lehigh Series Notes

Bucknell has played more games (184) and won more games (111) against Lehigh than any other school. The Bison have a 111-73 lead in a series that originated in 1902.
Since the start of Patriot League play in 1990-91, Bucknell holds a 51-27 advantage, including a 29-10 mark at home.
Lehigh is responsible for snapping Bucknell's 35-game home winning streak against Patriot League foes. The Bison had not lost to a conference opponent at Sojka Pavilion in nearly five years, until the Mountain Hawks won 56-54 in Lewisburg on Jan. 30, 2008.
Lehigh also won the first game ever played in Sojka Pavilion, a 60-56 decision on Jan. 15, 2003. Including that game, Bucknell is 15-9 against the Mountain Hawks in Sojka.
Bucknell is 7-3 against Lehigh in Patriot League Tournament action, including an 81-65 win in the 2017 championship game.
The Bison went 4-0 against Lehigh during the COVID-modified 2020-21 season, as the two teams played four times in the same campaign for the first time. The Mountain Hawks have bounced back by winning the last four meetings. This is their first four-game series winning streak since claiming five in a row over the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons.
In last year's first matchup at Sojka Pavilion, Alex Timmerman had the game of his career with 27 points and 10 rebounds, but the Bison went just 4-for-20 from 3-point range and fell 72-64. Lehigh's high-scoring guard trio of Tyler Whitney-Sidney (23), Evan Taylor (20), and Keith Higgins Jr. (12) combined for 55 of Lehigh's 72 points.
It was more of the same in the rematch at Stabler Arena, as Whitney-Sidney scored 20 points, Higgins had 15, and Taylor scored 10 in Lehigh's 78-62 win. Timmerman again paced the Bison with 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Jack Forrest added 18 points, but the Bison could not overcome a 1-for-13 shooting start.

Who's Got Next?

Bucknell returns home on Saturday to face Colgate at 3:30 p.m. It will be Alumni Day at Sojka Pavilion, and among the former Bison coming back will be members of the 1989 East Coast Conference championship team. That squad, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary, was Bucknell's second NCAA Tournament Team.
The Bison will be looking to snap a six-game series losing streak to the Raiders, who have captured the last three Patriot League titles.

Men's Basketball Heads to Lehigh Wednesday Evening

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Josh Bascoe

Ruot Bijiek

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Alex Timmerman

Noah Williamson

Men's Basketball Heads to Lehigh Wednesday Evening

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Josh Bascoe

Ruot Bijiek

Elvin Edmonds IV

Jack Forrest

Alex Timmerman

Noah Williamson

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