Men's Basketball Opens Season with 78-70 Victory Over Delaware

LEWISBURG, Pa. – Freshman Amon Dörries scored a game-high 20 points in his collegiate debut, leading the Bucknell men's basketball team to a 78-70 opening night victory over Delaware on Monday night at Sojka Pavilion. Ruot Bijiek added 14 points and seven rebounds, and Jayden Williams set career-highs in points (13), assists (6), and rebounds (4), for the Bison, who went up by 16 points inside seven minutes to play but had to fight off a late charge from the Blue Hens.

Dörries, a 6'11" center from Germany, made his first seven field goal attempts before finishing the night 8-for-10 from the field, 1-for-3 from the 3-point arc, and 3-for-4 from the foul line. His 20-points were tied for the second-most by Bucknell freshman in a season opener, and the only other 20-point debuts both came from Hall-of-Famers. Bob Barry scored 28 against Bloomsburg in 1976, and Mike Bright had 20 against Susquehanna in 1989-90. Three other rookies scored 18 on opening night, one of which was current head coach John Griffin III against Princeton in 2004.

Bucknell shot an efficient 10-for-24 (.417) from beyond the arc, with seven different Bison connecting from beyond the arc. Williams led the barrage with a trio of triples. The Bison outrebounded the Blue Hens, 42-34, and their improvement on the defensive glass was a big key. Delaware grabbed 10 offensive rebounds in the first half but only two in the second.

Jameel Brown scored a team-high 19 points for Delaware, Christian Bliss had 16 points and six assists, and Macon Emory logged a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Bucknell led for nearly 37 minutes after flipping around an early 5-0 deficit with an electric 14-0 run in a span of only 3:40. Dörries scored the team's first seven points of the night, highlighted by a steal and thunderous breakaway dunk for his first collegiate field goal. Consecutive 3-pointers from Williams, Pat Curtin, and Achile Spadone made it 14-5, and later in the half the Bison went up by 11 at 29-18 on a breakaway layup by Aleksander Pachucki.

Delaware closed within 34-28 at the break, and it was just a four-point game at 53-49 with 9:20 to play in the game. Dörries' best stretch of the night helped the Bison break it open. On consecutive possessions, he knocked down his first career 3-pointer from the top of the key, he pump-faked by a defender for a pull-up bank shot in the lane, and then he fed Bijiek for a layup on a high-low pass. Quin Berger, back in the lineup after missing all of last season with a knee injury, followed with a 3-pointer and then Dörries spun in the lane for a layup to make it 65-49 with 6:32 to go.

The Bison got a bit sloppy with the ball, however, and Delaware scored 13 straight points in just over two minutes, with nine of those coming from beyond the arc. Brandon McCreesh, who scored seven of his eight points in the last four minutes, made a big layup to stop the run, but Brown hit a 3-pointer to make it a 2-point game at 67-65 with 3:19 still to play.

The Bison never yielded the lead thanks to a couple of key plays and perfect free-throw shooting down the stretch. Bijiek skied for an offensive rebound off a missed 3-pointer and stuck it back in. At the other end, Dörries altered Brown's driving layup attempt, and McCreesh followed with a huge transition 3-pointer to make it 72-65 with 2:23 remaining.

Dörries, Williams, and McCreesh all made both ends of 1-and-1s to cap off Bucknell's 12-for-14 effort at the foul line (8-for-8 in the second half).

Bucknell shot 45.2 percent from the field while limiting Delaware to 39.1 percent. In addition to the big game from Dörries, freshman Curtin (seven points), sophomore transfer Pachucki (two points), and junior transfer Grgur Brcic (four points, five rebounds) all contributed in their Bucknell debuts.

This is the third straight season the Orange and Blue and Blue Hens met in the season opener, and the first time the home team prevailed; Bucknell won at Delaware in 2024, while the Blue Hens were victorious in Lewisburg in 2023. This was also Bucknell's first-ever win over a team that was a member of Conference USA at the time of the game. The Bison had been 0-2 against C-USA, with the losses coming to South Florida in 2001-02 and to Memphis in the second round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

Next up for Bucknell is a trip to Mount St. Mary's on Friday. The Mount is the defending champion in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, and they went on to defeat American in the NCAA First Four in Dayton.

Men's Basketball Opens Season with 78-70 Victory Over Delaware

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Team Stats

Amon Dörries

Ruot Bijiek

Jayden Williams

Brandon McCreesh

Players Mentioned

Quin Berger

Ruot Bijiek

Grgur Brcic

Pat Curtin

Brandon McCreesh

Aleksander Pachucki

Achile Spadone

Jayden Williams