(Originally posted Wed. night at 10:19 p.m., links added at 8:27 a.m.)

Bucknell's 59-54 win over Lehigh Wednesday night was everything you expected a battle between the two top defensive teams in the league to be.

Physical.

High-spirited.

A real battle royale between a pair of heavyweights both of whom came in feeling they were the team truly deserving the belt.

In the end, though, just like in boxing, it takes a knockout to dethrone the champs and Lehigh's pair of quick jabbing guards simply could not quite deliver enough firepower to take out the Bison, who are now alone at the top of the Patriot League standings with a 15-3 record overall, 6-0 in the league.

As anticipated, defense took the center stage in this one. Lehigh held Bucknell to its worst shooting night of the season against teams not named Duke. Bucknell forced Lehigh into 22 turnovers, matching the Mountain Hawks season high.

It was that kind of game.

Lehigh had the edge early, feeding off a combination of the adrenaline of its best home crowd of the season (3,556) and Bucknell's inability to knock down open shots.

The Bison missed 7 of their first 8 shots, 11 of their first 13, allowing Lehigh to build a lead of as many as 7 points. Bucknell buckled down and pulled back even before Jose Olivero's old-fashioned three-point play gave Lehigh a 26-23 lead at the break.

"We have been in those situations. We have been together a long time. We knew we would come back. A three-point game at halftime, it might as well be 0-0.," said Bucknell senior Kevin Bettencourt, who had not been on the winning side in Stabler prior to this game.

It was Bettencourt, who was 2-6 in the first half, that put Bucknell on top, hitting his second three-pointer of the game to make it 28-26 early in the second half.

Lehigh retook the lead on a three by Jose Olivero and a Jason Mgebroff layup. But Bettencourt hit another three and Chris McNaughton connected on a 15-foot jumper at the 15:47 to put the Bison back on top. The McNaughton bucket was his second of the half and gave the 6-11 junior 1,000 career points at Bucknell.

The Mountain Hawks stayed close, tying the game twice in the next five minutes. Then John Griffin hit a trey to make it 39-36 Bucknell with 9:44 to play and the Bison held the lead the rest of the way.

By the 5:07 mark, when Bettencourt, who finished with a team-high 16 points, hit his third trey of the half to stretch the lead to 5, Bucknell seemed to be in control. After being outrebounded in the first half, 20-12, the Bison seemed to be getting every missed shot. Bucknell had 10 offensive rebounds in the last five minutes of the game alone.

Typical of the way Bucknell played in the second half was a sequence with just over two minutes to play. With Bucknell up 7 and trying to milk the clock, they ended up getting a long McNaughton jump shot out of a timeout with the shot clock showing 1 second. McNaughton's shot drew the front iron and bounced off, but McNaughton got the rebound, giving the Bison a fresh 35 on the shot clock.

That reset was also running down when Lee missed a jumper, but got his own rebound and was fouled. Lee made both shots to give Bucknell a 50-41 lead in a situation where twice Lehigh would have had a chance to cut the lead to 4 or 5 had they come up with the rebound. Key to the Bucknell effort on the boards was Donald Brown, who had a game-high 10 rebounds, nine in the second half.

"We weren't able to get critical rebounds. You can't miss those opportunities," said Lehigh coach Billy Taylor.

They also seemed to come up with every loose ball in the second half.

"We did all the hustle plays," Bettencourt said.

That included playing better defense after the intermission. After Lehigh shot 10-23 (43.5 percent) in the first half, the Bison held the Mountain Hawks to 9-25 (36 percent) in the second. That number was even lower until Olivero and Joe Knight hit a trio of three-pointers from just inside the New Jersey border in the final minute.

Bucknell seemed comfortable after Lee's two free throws made it 50-41 with 1:26 left. But the Bison needed to knock down 9 of 14 free throws in the final 1:20 to close it out thanks to a combination of a Lehigh press and some questionable calls by the officials, who hit Bucknell's Abe Badmus with two fouls in a span of 37 seconds to disqualify the Bison point guard, who finished with 10 points..

The first came when he was well in front of Knight, who finished with 21 points and 9 rebounds. Knight extended a forearm football style as he dribbled into Badmus, stopping the clock and getting to the line for two points.

In the end, though, it didn't matter. Lehigh managed to stretch the game long enough to get 5 possessions in the final 40 seconds, but could only convert those possessions into two long three-pointers.

While Knight and Olivero combined for 40 points and 7 three-pointers, they also had a combined 11 turnovers. Lehigh had a total of 22.

It gets no easier for Lehigh. They host Holy Cross Saturday in a game that will determine who holds second place at the end of the first round of league play. Bucknell will be home Saturday against Navy.

Box score

Game blog

Daily Item

ET on Sports

Express-Times game story

Express-Times column (on Joe Knight)

Morning Call game story

Morning Call column