Men’s Basketball Tests Top-Seed Navy but Falls 74-69 in Patriot League Quarterfinals

Thursday, March 5

Annapolis, Md.

7 p.m.

Bucknell University

10-23,6-12Patriot

Navy (PL Quarterfinals)

26-6,17-1Patriot

Bucknell

Navy

Men’s Basketball Tests Top-Seed Navy but Falls 74-69 in Patriot League Quarterfinals

3/5/2026 9:44:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

JOHN GRIFFIN POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE:

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The No. 8 seed Bucknell men's basketball team had regular-season champion Navy on the ropes all night, but the top-seeded Midshipmen used a 15-0 second-half run to flip an eight-point deficit into a 74-69 win in the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday night at Alumni Hall. Senior Achile Spadone led all players with 20 points in his final collegiate game.

Navy won its 14th straight game to improve to 26-6 and advance to face Boston University in the semifinals on Sunday. Bucknell's season ends at 10-23.

Freshman center Amon Dörries tallied 18 points, Aleksander Pachucki had 11 points and six rebounds, and Pat Curtin overcame foul trouble to record 10 points and seven rebounds. Dörries and Spadone both played all 40 minutes, and Pachucki and Jayden Williams played 38 as a season marked by injuries came to an end.

Navy's role players were the difference. The Bison limited Patriot League Player of the Year Austin Benigni to 14 points, four under his average, and forced him into five turnovers. Fellow First Team All-Patriot Leaguer Aidan Kehoe was held to six points, but Cam Cole came off the bench to hit four 3-pointers and score a team-high 16 points, and Mike Woods scored 10 of his 12 in the second half on a variety of mid-range jumpers. Jinwoo Kim also nailed four 3-pointers and finished with 14.

Woods and Cole scored the first 13 points in that game-changing 15-0 run. Bucknell led 54-46 with 12:51 to go but then went 7:38 without a point. Woods hit three straight long twos, and then Cole canned back-to-back threes to get the crowd into the game. Jordan Pennick capped the run with a third straight trey to give the Midshipmen a 61-54 lead with 5:39 to go.

Pachucki quieted the crowd with a 3-pointer to end the drought, and later he had a look at a three rim out that would have made it a one-point game with two minutes to go. Benigni followed with a spinning layup, but the Bison climbed back within three at 70-67 on a Spadone trey with 34 seconds left. Bucknell had a couple of fouls to give, and then Kim broke loose for a layup on the pressbreak. After a Bison miss, Benigni made two free throws to make it 74-67 before Spadone scored with a second left.

Bucknell shot 42.6 percent from the field and went 11-for-29 from the arc and 6-for-6 from the foul line. Navy shot 56.5 percent in the second half and 51.1 percent for the game. The Mids went 11-for-23 from the arc and 15-for-20 from the foul line.

The Bison did a great job on the glass against a strong rebounding team. The Bison led 33-28, including 14 offensive boards that led to a 14-5 edge in second-chance points. Bucknell limited Navy to 18 points in the paint, as most of the Mids' damage came from three and the mid-range game.

Both teams were hot out of the gates, with Bucknell starting 7-for-12 and Navy 7-for-11 with three 3-pointers apiece. The Bison made the game's first push with a 12-0 run that flipped a 23-19 deficit into a 31-23 lead.

Pachucki, who was everywhere in the first half, had five points in that stretch, and Williams splashed a 3-pointer from the top of the key to make it an eight-point game.

Benigni's floater in the late cut the gap to 39-36 at halftime, but the Bison got out to another strong start in the second half. Spadone and Curtin connected on 3-pointers as part of a 10-5 run, pushing the lead back to eight at 49-41.

Navy scored five straight points, the last two on a pair of Cole free throws that also resulted in Curtin's fourth foul with 14:47 to play. Senior Quin Berger came off the bench in place of Curtin and immediately hit a layup off a backdoor cut and a left-corner 3-pointer to make it 54-46. But by the time the Bison scored again they trailed by seven.

Navy has now won 22 of its last 23 games and will host fourth-seeded Boston University on Sunday. No. 2 Lehigh needed a half-court buzzer-beater from Nasir Whitlock to get past No. 10 Holy Cross, and the Mountain Hawks will host No. 3 Colgate in the other semifinal.