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Sunday, December 17, 2006
Bucknell-Cornell notebook
Tidbits and trivia from the Bison's 70-66 win Saturday at Cornell:
  • Bucknell's big men were all but invisible in the first half. The combination of starters Chris McNaughton and Donald Brown and first guy off the bench Darren Mastropaolo had a combined 4 points (all by Brown) and 4 rebounds. Cornell center Andrew Naeve had 6 points and 4 rebounds himself. Cornell's nominal four-man, 6-6 freshman Ryan Wittman (who is really more of a small forward playing with three guards and Naeve) had 9 points, including three treys.

    The second half was a different story, with McNaughton going 3 for 4 from the field and 3 for 3 at the line to finish with 9 points while Brown added 10 second half points on 4 for 6 shooting from the field. Wittman added just a pair of free throws in the second half and Naeve ended up with 10 points.

  • When John Griffin missed thre front end of a three-shot foul at the 5:15 mark of the first half, it was his first missed free throw of the season, ending a streak of 29 makes in a row, dating to last season. Griffin responded by starting a new streak, hitting the back two. That streak ended when Griffin went to the line for three with a chance to cut the Cornell lead to 1 with 8:11 to play. Griffin missed the first two.

  • Abe Badmus played the entire first half with one personal, then picked up three in the first 8:11 of the second, including a curious call on his fourth foul which came when Badmus got in the way of Louis Dale's forearm as Dale pushed him off . That foul was Bucknell's seventh, putting Cornell to the line the rest of the way. At that point, Cornell had a total of 9 personals for the game.

  • In a classic case of evening things up, the next three fouls were called on Cornell and the two teams actually picked up their 10th team fouls within 18 seconds of each other. In the end, Badmus managed to avoid fouling out while Cornell lost the services of senior point guard Graham Dow when he picked up his fifth personal with 3:22 to play. Bucknell ended up with 18 team fouls, Cornell 17 and both teams shot 20 free throws, with Bucknell making 15, Cornell 17.

  • Bucknell started the same five as started the George Mason game, with Donald Brown at the four, Jason Vegotsky at the three and Darren Mastropaolo coming off the bench. Pat Flannery used 11 guys in the first half, but shortened his rotation to 8 in the second, with freshman Patrick Behand and Stephen Tyree and junior Andrew Morrison stuck to the pine after the intermission.

  • The teams' field goal shooting in the two halves was a mirror image. The first 20 minutes, Cornell went 14 for 24 from the floor (58.3 percent), making 6 of 9 from the three-point arc. In the second, the Big Red made just 7 of 18 field goal tries (38.9 percent), 1 of 7 three-point tries. Bucknell was 13 for 23 (56.5 percent) in the second half (3 of 7 threes) after going 11 for 26 (42.3 percent) from the field in the first half (including 4 of 10 from the arc).

    BISON CHIPS: Sophomore Justin Castleberry's 11 points tied his career-high set earlier this season at Yale . . . The Bucknell win, the Bison's fourth in a row over Cornell, either ties, or puts Bucknell up one, in the all-time series between the 'nells. Bucknell's pre-game notes said the series was tied at 21-21, Cornell claimed a 21-20 edge in its notes . . . The series is one of the oldest rivalries in college basketball, dating to 1898 . . . The Bison win evens the season series between the Ivies and the Patriots at 8-8 with four games between the two conferences yet to be played . . . With his 6 for 8 showing Brown is no shooting over 60 percent from the field . . . Brown is 34 for 51 in eight games since going 1 for 7 in Bucknell's season opener at Albany . . . The game was the second of a six-game stretch away from home for Bucknell, which has played in its own gym only twice thus far . . . Bucknell won't play a third game in Sojka Pavilion until it opens league play Jan. 6 against Navy . . . Brown's 14 points leave him one point shy of 600 for his career . . . Also one shy of a milestone: Bison coach Pat Flannery, who picked up the 299th win of his career . . . Cornell's nine-man rotation included two seniors, two sophomores and five freshmen . . . A third senior, guard Kevin App, shows up in the boxscore thanks to a 2 second cameo with 8 seconds to play in the first half when he was inserted long enough to intentionally use up Cornell's sixth team foul in an effort to shorten the clock at the end of the half . . . Bucknell, which has nobody averaging in double figures, had six players score 9 or more points against Cornell, including four in double figures for the fourth time this season . . . Bucknell's resumes its road warrior routine Wednesday in Cincinnati against Xavier . . . From there it is on to Lubbock, Tx. For a Saturday encounter with Texas Tech . . . Tech coach Bobby Knight will be looking to tie former North Carolina mentor Dean Smith as college basketball's all-time winningest coach in that game.



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