Men's Basketball Falls to Columbia at Home, 77-59

Friday, November 13

Lewisburg, Pa.

7 p.m.

Bucknell University

0-4,0-0Patriot

Columbia

3-1,0-0Ivy League

Team	1	2	F
Columbia	36	41	77
Bucknell	29	30	59

Photo by: Jon Lambert

11/13/2026 9:05:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

LEWISBURG, Pa. – The Bucknell men's basketball team fell to Columbia at Sojka Pavilion, 77-59 on Friday night. The Lions raced out to a big early lead and withstood two big Bison runs on the way to their third straight win and a 3-1 start to the season. Bucknell dropped to 0-4, despite another big night from Aleksander Pachucki, who led all scorers with 19 points.

Pachucki came into the game leading the Patriot League and ranked 26th nationally with 4.0 made 3-pointers per game, and that average will go up after he knocked down five more in this one. Rocco Lamuno and Patrick O'Brien also landed in double figures with 12 and 10 points.

Columbia was led by Gerard O'Keefe with 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting, including 4-for-8 from the 3-point arc. Connor Igoe finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Josiah Cunningham led a 28-point night from the Lions bench with 12.

The Bison were chasing the game right from the early stages, as Columbia sprinted to a 28-10 lead midway through the first half. Down 18 after Cunningham's layup, Bucknell got going behind two straight buckets from reserve forward Ethan Marten-Coney. That ignited a run of 12 straight points that led to a 16-3 surge over a six-minute span. Lamuno's driving layup cut the gap to six at 28-22, and after O'Keefe's 3-pointer ended Columbia's drought, O'Brien scored on a put-back and Pachucki found a cutting Luke Soden for a layup that made it 31-26.

The Bison had a chance to creep even closer but missed three straight open jumpers, and five straight points from Cunningham pushed the margin back to 10 at 36-26.

Pachucki's 3-pointer with 34 seconds left made it a 36-29 game at the break, and then O'Brien and Pachuki scored on the first two possessions of the second half to make it a 3-point game at 36-33. Again Columbia had an answer, scoring 10 straight points to cap a 14-2 run, and in a span of only five minutes, the lead was back to 15 at 50-35.

Bucknell did chip away again, pulling within six at 59-53 after Lamuno's acrobatic finish on the break for a 3-point play. One of the game's biggest sequences followed, as Lamuno deflected a pass but couldn't corral the ball in a pileup in the backcourt. The ball went back to Columbia, and O'Keefe hit a dagger 3-pointer on that possession. Igoe then blocked a shot, grabbed the defensive rebound, and fed Mason Ritter for a dunk at the other end to make it 64-53. Lamuni nailed a corner 3-pointer, but then another Lions 10-0 put the game out of reach at 76-56 with 2:30 to play.

Bucknell was +3 on the glass in the first half but was outrebounded 22-6 in the second as the Bison played with a smaller lineup for a long stretch. That led to a 13-2 second-half edge in second-chance points for Columbia.

The Lions shot 49.1 percent overall and 40.0 percent (10-25) from long range. The Bison were limited to 38.7 percent shooting, including a 7-for-32 showing from the arc. Bucknell came into the game leading the Patriot League in free-throw shooting at 76.0 percent but went just 4-for-12 in this one.

Bucknell did have 17 assists on 24 made field goals, continuing a positive trend to start the season, and committed only 11 turnovers to Columbia's 15.

This was the first of three straight home games for the Bison. Defending Mid-America Conference champion Akron visits Sojka Pavilion for the first time on Tuesday at 7 p.m.