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No. 9 Bucknell vs. No. 8 Arkansas (American Airlines Center, Dallas, Tx., 12:30 eastern, CBS):There has been a lot of talk about a clash of styles between Bucknell and Arkansas. For good reason.

TALE OF THE TAPE
Category	BU	Aub
PPG(O)	66.6	74.3
PPG (D)	55.3	65.1
FG pct.	.471	.459
FG pct. (D)	.389	.417
3 FG pct.	.389	.340
3 FG pct. (D)	.318	.374
FT pct.	.687	.694
RPG	32.3	35.0
R margin	+3.0	+0.1
APG	14.6	15.5
TOPG	14.7	13.4
Blocks PG	1.8	6.1
Steals PG	8.8	8.5
RPI	42	45
Grad. rate	100 pct.	<20 pct.

These two teams really only have two things in common: both are pretty good and both are in Dallas for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Bucknell is the small, eastern academic school. Arkansas the power conference team from the south. It's abasketball version of Wall Street vs. Wal-Mart.

The Bison are control freaks. They like an orderly pace and conservative style, running through their halfcourt patterns on offense and sitting down in their tenacious match-up zone on defense, forcing the other team to out-execute them -- something few have been able to accomplish.

Arkansas has an illustration of a running Razorback hog on its jerseys, reminiscent in some ways of the old dribbling buffalo from Bucknell's Charlie Woollum Breakin' Bison era. They have the athletes and they like to turn them loose. They are at their best when the game is played at a breakneck pace, as evidenced by their 7-0 record in games where they score 80 or more points.

Bucknell is very athletic by Patriot League standards, but hardly a match for Arkansas on those terms. The Razorbacks are bigger, stronger, faster and better leapers. They will try to see to it that the game is played in a style that allows them to take advantage of that.

The Bison will counter by trying to negate that edge by playing smarter, looking to confuse the Hawgs' offense while wearing the Arkansas defense down mentally by relentlessly running their patterns until the Razorbacks make a mistake that they can capitalize upon -- leaving Chris McNaughton open in the post or one of the shooters alone on the wings.

To some, it might sound like a mismatch. To those who have watched Bucknell over the past two seasons, it looks quite different.

At the preseason media day gathering of Patriot League coaches, Ralph Willard talked about how he expected Bucknell to have a good chance of beating Kansas in last year's first round. The Holy Cross coach explained his reasoning. Bucknell's defense would keep them in the game, he said. If they could hit a few shots, they could win.

That same reasoning could well apply here. Arkansas is good. Maybe even very good. But the Razorbacks are not great. Certainly they would not be viewed as a better team than last season's Kansas five, which entered the tournament with a No. 3 seed. A lot of folks forget how good the Jayhawks' season was, choosing to remember only their quick exit from the dance.

This might be a good place to mention that Bucknell will start the same five guys who started that game, while Arkansas has nobody on the roster that has ever been to the dance.

The Razorbacks certainly are not the best team the Bison have faced this season. That honor would go to Duke or Villanova. Duke was the only team to actually blowout the Bison. Not that Bucknell would have won that game under better circumstances, but the lopsided nature of that one had a lot to do with the Bison's cross country travels and lack of preparation time,

Villanova blitzed the Bison early, but after the first 10 minutes Bucknell certainly held their own with the Wildcats.

Bucknell has shown over the past two seasons that it can play with the big boys -- maybe not the Top 5 types like the Blue Devils or Nova -- but certainly with most other major conference types. As Lafayette coach Fran O'Hanlon pointed out earlier this season, there is a huge drop-off after the Top 5, maybe even after the top 3.

Expect Arkansas to try to pressure the Bison, looking to create turnovers for easy buckets and to get the pace of the game up to a speed more its liking. If the Bison prove they can handle that pressure, they have a very good chance of advancing to Sunday's round of 32.

That will be the key to this one. Arkansas is long and athletic, and coach Stan Heath has certainly spent considerable time watching tapes of the Duke game, when the Blue Devils harassed Bucknell into 20 turnovers by trapping in the backcourt.

If Arkansas can have the same success, it could be a long afternoon for the Bison. On the other hand, if Bucknell has figured out how to handle that sort of press, they well could make their second straight appearance in the second round.

The Bison have worked hard on handling the press ever since that loss. How much they have learned remains to be seen. Nobody in the Patriot League has had the athleticism to press the Bison with any success. The few who have tried have all called it off quickly.

But those were quizzes. Today is an exam.
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