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Thursday, December 29, 2005
Bucknell 63, Boston U. 57
(Originally posted 1:14 a.m., updated at 7:57 a.m.)

Bison advance to the final of the Cable Car Classic, where they will face host Santa Clara, 63-61 winners over U.C.-Riverside in the other first round game.

Hoop Time correspondent Tom Welch "back in the day."

Hoop Time correspondent Tom Welch, a former Bucknell center (1993-97), was at the game and filed this report:
Spent the hour long drive home trying to decide between sloppy or lazy as my description of the Bucknell side of things tonight. Reality is, it was neither. Or more correctly, not exclusively either. Credit the Terriers' concerted effort to shut down Kevin Bettencourt for completely negating Bucknell's ability to run their motion offense. I can not remember the last time I have seen a "box and one" in a college game, and while they did not run it all the time, the fact that they did at all showed their strategy. Boston's desire to "take the head off the beast" by removing Kevin from the picture offensively was a very good coaching move except for one problem: Charles Lee was scheduled to play that role tonight.

Granted, this is a bet that I would probably have taken if I were in Boston U's position. You can't stop Chris McNaughton (they couldn't), you can't out execute them (they couldn't), you can't out quick them (you get the picture), so you try to change them. And putting the onus on Charles seemed to be the right thing to do - he has appeared to be the most up and down of the big three so far this year. But you could not tell tonight.

Even with the Terrier's ability to keep Kevin, and to a lesser part, Abe Badmus, out of the motion game, all Bucknell had to out-execute them with their set plays. But given some erratic play by some usual contributors, it took coach a while to configure a substitution pattern that allowed him to keep the execution focused guys on the floor a majority of the time. The times he did looked like a clinic. Bucknell got a quality shot every time they ran a set (particularly the high 1-4 with an on-ball screen). And a fair number of their turnovers were guys giving up seven foot jumpers in an attempt to squeeze the ball in for a lay-up. (Maybe a hangover from the giving season.)

All in all a frustrating game. I guess I jinxed them in my notes from yesterday. From now on, nothing nice about the Bison. Just like you used to do back in the day.

Other notes:

As an "old timer", it was strange to see Bucknell as a home team in a mid-season tournament - I don't think we were a "three" seed too many times in my four years. It was an accomplishment just to not play the home team in the first game (meaning you were not the worst team of the bunch).

Not to give away the farm - but expect Santa Clara to run a lot of baseline exchanges against Bucknell's match-up tomorrow. "Rusty" does not even begin to capture it. I haven't seen people that wide open under the basket since Coach took over the team and tried to teach the forwards all the schemes in a week. Good thing Boston's backcourt could neither identify nor feed the open man in the first half thanks to the on-ball pressure from Bucknell's guards.

Out of a time out, it looked like Coach just said "to hell with it, we're getting Kevin a shot". He came off two screens and caught a forced pass and nailed a somewhat double clutch three over two people. It was enough to make you laugh.

Oh, and when I say Boston could not stop Chris, I really, really mean it. He made it look like I could score on them. (You could have even gone for eight.) He was really impressive.

Donald Brown hit two HUGE ten footers in the second half.
McNaughton finished with 20 points for Bucknell. Lee added 15 and 5 assists.

Bucknell shot 53.5 perecent (23-43) from the field, including 13-21 (61.9 percent) in the second half. The Bison held the Terriers to 40 percent from the field. That actually is the best anybody other than Villanova has shot against the Bison since Rider hit 43.8 percent in the season opener.
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    • Published at 7:57 AM by Hoop Time.
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