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Friday, December 30, 2005
Bison are road kill
(Originally posted post game around 1:30 a.m., updated at 8:14 a.m.)

Turnovers, foul trouble and a hot-shooting Santa Clara team were more than Bucknell could overcome in the final of the Cable Car Classic, falling to the host Broncos 77-68.

Santa Clara (7-5) took control of the game with a 14-0 run midway through the first half, building a 37-26 halftime lead. Bucknell never got closer than 5 in the second half.

The Broncos scorched Bucknell's vaunted defense, shooting 55 percent from the field, the best showing by any Bucknell opponent all season. Villanova, which shot 50 percent, is the only other team to shoot better than 44 percent against the Bison.

Bucknell with 16 turnovers, six by point guard Abe Badmus.

Chris McNaughton and Kevin Bettencourt each had 17 for Bucknell. McNaughton was 6-9 from the field, but played only 23 minutes due to foul trouble. Darren Mastropaolo was also limited to 25 minutes due to foul trouble and Donald Brown fouled out in 19 minutes of action. Charles Lee also in double figures with 15 for Bucknell.

Bucknell, which has been shooting over 50 percent on the season, shot just 43 percent from the field.

Santa Clara's Travis Niesen, who was named the tournament MVP, led all scorers with 24. Calvin Johnson added 16 before fouling out with 2 minutes to play. Mitch Henke (13) and Brody Angley (11) also in double figures for the Broncos.

Hoop Time's West Coast correspondent. former Bucknell center Tom Welch, filed this report by e-mail:
Foul trouble was really the least of it though - it really impacted big men on both sides - and at the worse it was a wash because the game was not won or lost on the inside (although an extra ten minutes from Chris McNaughton would have been nice). The big problem with the foul situation was the fouls that were expected but not called on the guards. Bucknell was never able to adjust to the fact that there would be (hard) contact on every shot. As a result, they stopped taking the ball to the basket. BU's entire backcourt took 13 2-pointers versus 24 3-pointers. And Santa Clara was not packing in their defense.

Part of the reason that BU's turnovers were up was because the defense for Santa Clara did not need to help during penetration and BU was trying to force passes when they just should have shot it. It looked like the Bison had learned their lesson at the end of the first half (with McNaughton out). They took the ball strong to the basket and got some good looks (some that didn't drop), but they never followed through. And I think the lack of penetration resulted in the lack of production outside of Chris, Kevin Bettencourt and Charles Lee - none of the other guys ever had easy looks.

Regardless of the above, Santa Clara hit some big shots and BU missed some big shots.

The truth is that this was not a game where Bucknell should have needed big shots.
The loss was the second of the season for Bucknell (9-2), their first on the road, and snapped a four-game win streak.
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    • Published at 8:14 AM by Hoop Time.
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