Bucknell Basketball

Bucknell 65 - Holy Cross 58

Watched the 2nd game in a row on CBS Sports Network.

Overall Thoughts

• Good bounce back from the Lehigh loss on Wednesday night. The road trip to Holy Cross is Bucknell’s longest in the Patriot Leage (at least until Boston U join) and frequently tends to trip up Bucknell teams. It wasn’t a dominant performance, but the Bison did what they needed to get out with a win.
• Coach Dave Paulsen had some pretty harsh comments for his team after the Lehigh performance and there may have been some carry over into the 1st minutes of this game. After Dave Dudzinski scored 8 points in the opening minutes Joe Willman was brought to the bench in favor of Dom Hoffman. The move seemed to get Willman’s attention as when he went back into the game his performance picked up considerably with 10 points at the half and a team high 16 for the game.
• Bryson Johnson also scored 16 for the game including 2 3 pointers to tie him with Kevin Bettencourt for the school record. Johnson was also effective from the foul line going 8-9 to help close out the game late.
• The CBS broadcast team praised the officials early in the 2nd half which of course brought on a serious of questionable calls and ticky-tack fouls. Mike Muscala picked up his 4th foul with 8:20 left and had to sit several minutes, but the depth provided by Hoffman and Fitzpatrick kept the Bison from giving ground.
• Wonder when the last time Muscala was the 4th leading scorer for Bucknell? My best guess is last year’s Patriot League tournament opener against Navy where he only scored 2 points while playing 20 minutes and only taking 3 shots.
• After only playing 6 minutes on Wednesday Steven Kasper played the most of any Bison point guard, aided by Ryan Hill foul trouble. Early in the season it looked like Ryan Frazier might become a legit scoring option of the bench, but he now has 2 points in the last 4 games.

Overall Performance: 3.5 out of 5 Bison

1/2

A solid performance that was really needed. The Bison need to get on a roll here so that they can go into the February 18th rematch with Lehigh with some momentum.