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Friday, December 02, 2005
Morning readaround
So far, so good: Bucknell beat writer Tom Housenick of the Daily Item has a column today that looks at Bucknell's fast start. Among Tom's observations:
Offensively, the Bison appear to be in mid-season form. Bucknell is shooting 51.2 percent from the floor as a team (44.4 percent last season), 57.6 percent in the second half.

The Bison also have dramatically improved in the turnover department. They are a plus-12 for the season in assist/turnover ratio (minus 92 last season). And they are winning the hustle battle, with a 47-31 edge in combined blocked shots and steals.

Bucknell is in a rhythm offensively and as talented as its perfect start indicates, but the Bison are winning because of their defense, especially in the second half of games.

Foes are shooting just 33.0 percent from the floor in the second half this season.
Encore, Encore: Pat Murray of the Tonawanda News was at Wednesday night's Bucknell-Niagara game. He liked the game so much, he wants to see them play again.

This was the last of a four-game series between the two teams. Murray writes
:“We only have one open date next year,” Niagara coach Joe Mihalich said after Wednesday’s loss. “Maybe we can resume it the following year.”
Oh sure it would be easy to say Mihalich wants to wait until Chris McNaughton is gone, but we doubt that is the case. More likely he, and his team, would like to get right back at BU after losing two times in as many seasons by a total of 5 points.

The two teams are not old, traditional rivals. The series dates only to 1982 and includes just 8 games since then. But if Mihalich keeps turning out the kind of teams he has had in recent years, odds are that is a game Pat Flannery would like to see on his schedule. Flannery is not one to load his non-conference slate with cupcakes.

From Murray's coulumn:
There’s a healthy respect between the two coaches for what they’ve accomplished, even if the mid-majors have trouble getting respect from the mammoth Division I institutions. As Flannery said earlier in the week: “The right people respect us, that’s what matters.”

Bucknell may not have the name recognition of some other schools on Niagara’s schedule, but the Purple Eagles won’t be facing many foes tougher than the Bison.

Two schools that have developed solid basketball programs while not sacrificing educational standards battling down to the wire on the court. It’s what college hoops should be about.
His column did not actually include bold face type. We added that to make it easier for Lehigh folks to read.

Becoming a regular: Genaro Armas of the Associated Press has unofficially made more trips to Lewisburg this year than all AP writers combined over the past 5, maybe even 10 seasons.

We're cool with that. As we have said before, there is plenty of room on the Patriot League bandwagon.

In his latest visit, Armas put together a look at Bucknell's success so far. Not much new in there, but there is a good Pat Flannery quote on the difference between this team and some he has had in other seasons:
In the past, we could play a really, really fine game and change some things in our game plan to compete with some people," Flannery said. "(Now) we are able to go and do some things that we want to do, as opposed to holding the tail and trying to hang on."
Published at 8:29 AM by Hoop Time.
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