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Sunday, January 28, 2007
(Updated with game story and links at 9:47 a.m.)
Army is better than it used to be, but it made little difference Saturday night at Bucknell.
By CHRIS A. COUROGEN
There is an old joke, variously attributed to Kinky Friedman or Jerry Jeff Walker, that goes something like this: A guy walks into a bar, hits on a cowboy's girlfriend and the next thing he knows he is laying in the parking lot surrounded by the half-dozen cowboys who kicked his ass. The guy looks up through the one eye he can still open and says, "You guys ain't so tough. I got beat up a lot worse by some bikers up in Austin."
That might have been the way Jim Crews looked at this year's Bucknell Bison Saturday night after they thrashed his Army ballclub 74-49 in as thorough a whooping as the league has seen all season. After all, Crews was Army's coach back in 2004 when they came to Lewisburg and left on the short end of a 75-25 final.
This one was closer on the scoreboard, but to many of the 4,110 on hand for Young Alumni Night in Sojka Pavilion, it was a Yogi Berra moment -- deja vu all over again. After the game, Crews didn't mention that 2004 debacle. But his opening comment in the postgame press conference pretty much summed things up.: "From my standpoint, it really looked like (Bucknell) played well."
Playing without head coach Pat Flannery, who was back home in Pottsville for his father's funeral, the Bison came out strong for the second game in a row, putting this one away shortly after the first media timeout.
Bucknell spotted the Black Knights a 2-0 lead when Donald Brown turned it over on the Bison's first possession and Kenny Brewer made a layup at the other end. Then Abe Badmus hit the first of his three three-pointers and the rout was on.
At the beginning of the week, Badmus was 10 for 34 (29.3 percent) on the season from the arc. After going 5 for 7 in the wins over Lehigh and Army, his three-point field goal percentage has leaped to 36.6 percent. In the process, he has made Bucknell's whole offense a whole lot better.
When Badmus is hitting from the perimeter, "That's not good," said Crews, supplying an opponent's perspective.
For most of the season, Badmus' shooting woes have led teams to play off him, allowing more help down low on guys like Chris McNaughton and Donald Brown and limiting Badmus' opportunities to penetrate, where he is as dangerous as any player in the league.
"(Badmus) can get inside the core of the defense. Then if he stretches you out with those shots . . . We never thought he was a bad shooter, but you can't take everything away when they've got five guys out there that can do some things," Crews said. "We gambled and we lost that gamble."
Big time.
Badmus first trey sparked an 18-2 Bucknell run that gave the Bison a double-digit lead in a hurry. When he hit his third three-pointer, giving Bucknell a 24-6 lead with 9:09 to go in the first half, it cued a chant of "Abe's got more points" from the Sojka Pscyhos behind the south basket.
"They went in, I don't know what to say," said Badmus afterward. "I've been getting in the gym a little extra and it is really paying off."
Bison assistant coach Nate Davis, who ran the show in Flannery's absence, said the coaches knew all along Badmus was capable of shooting better than he had.
"We never got down on him. We kept encouraging him," Davis said. "We've been preaching to him not to shoot because they are daring you to. Shoot it because you want to."
The three-pointers were big for Badmus, but they were far from his only contribution. He also dished out four assists and made three steals while generally disrupting Army's offensive flow all night. Badmus brought the crowd to its feet early when he stole an inbounds pass after a Donald Brown free throw and made an acrobatic save to get the ball out to John Griffin at the top of the arc, where Griffin drained a three to give the Bison an early 11-4 lead.
Badmus was not the only thing the Bison faithful had to get excited about.
Against the Patriot League's top-ranked defense -- an Army team ranked No. 25 in the nation in field goal percentage defense coming in -- the Bison knocked down 15 of their 23 shots (65.2 percent) in the first half, including 7 of 10 from the arc and a pair of monstrous one-handed breakaway jams by Donald Brown, the second putting the Bison up 43-15 at the half.
"We shot the ball well and executed our offense extremely well," Davis said.
Army's 15 first-half points were not a record low in Sojka. That was set back in that 2004 game when the Black KNights only scored 9 points in the first half. The Black Knights 26.1 percent (6 of 23) shooting in the half also failed to threaten the ineptitude of that 2004 team, which made only 8 field goals that entire game (on 45 shots, 17.2 percent), but it was easily Army's worst offensive half of the season.
"Our focus and effort the start of the game was fantastic," said Davis, who admitted about all he had to do to coach the team on this night was "sit back and watch them go."
The Bison did not end up breaking any records, though their 57.1 percent shooting for the game and their 52.9 percent shooting from the arc were both season highs. hard to tell how those numbers might have ended up had Davis not substituted so liberally. Ten of the 12 Bison in uniform saw action in the first half. All 12 played in the second half. None of the Bison starters played more than 27 minutes and freshman Zach Evans, who played the final 2:13 of the game, was the only Bison to play less than 8.
McNaughton, who finished with 11 points on 4 for 6 shooting, left the game for good with just under 8 minutes to go. Brown, who finished with 12 points (4 of 5 from the field), 8 rebounds and 4 steals, followed McNaughton to the bench with almost six minutes still on the clock. By the 5:23 mark, with Bucknell up by 35 points after a pair of Jason Vegotsky (12 points) free throws, all five Bison starters were done for the night.
Jarrell Brown led Army with 14 points, none of which came when the game was in doubt. Brown's first bucket of the game came with 2:06 to go in the first half. By then the Bison were already ahead by 27 points. Matt Bell also reachd double figures with 11 points on 3 of 9 shooting from the floor.
The victory, Bucknell's 31st straight home win in conference play, was the Bison's fourth in a row and their eighth in their last nine outings. The Bison, who are now 12-4 since opening the season with four straight losses, enter the second half of league play solidly in second place, one game behind first place Holy Cross, which will visit Sojka in two weeks.
Box score | Post game audio (Jim Crews, Nathan Davis, Abe Badmus, Stephen Tyree) | BU photo gallery | Daily Item
Army is better than it used to be, but it made little difference Saturday night at Bucknell.
By CHRIS A. COUROGEN
There is an old joke, variously attributed to Kinky Friedman or Jerry Jeff Walker, that goes something like this: A guy walks into a bar, hits on a cowboy's girlfriend and the next thing he knows he is laying in the parking lot surrounded by the half-dozen cowboys who kicked his ass. The guy looks up through the one eye he can still open and says, "You guys ain't so tough. I got beat up a lot worse by some bikers up in Austin."
That might have been the way Jim Crews looked at this year's Bucknell Bison Saturday night after they thrashed his Army ballclub 74-49 in as thorough a whooping as the league has seen all season. After all, Crews was Army's coach back in 2004 when they came to Lewisburg and left on the short end of a 75-25 final.
This one was closer on the scoreboard, but to many of the 4,110 on hand for Young Alumni Night in Sojka Pavilion, it was a Yogi Berra moment -- deja vu all over again. After the game, Crews didn't mention that 2004 debacle. But his opening comment in the postgame press conference pretty much summed things up.: "From my standpoint, it really looked like (Bucknell) played well."
Playing without head coach Pat Flannery, who was back home in Pottsville for his father's funeral, the Bison came out strong for the second game in a row, putting this one away shortly after the first media timeout.
Bucknell spotted the Black Knights a 2-0 lead when Donald Brown turned it over on the Bison's first possession and Kenny Brewer made a layup at the other end. Then Abe Badmus hit the first of his three three-pointers and the rout was on.
At the beginning of the week, Badmus was 10 for 34 (29.3 percent) on the season from the arc. After going 5 for 7 in the wins over Lehigh and Army, his three-point field goal percentage has leaped to 36.6 percent. In the process, he has made Bucknell's whole offense a whole lot better.
When Badmus is hitting from the perimeter, "That's not good," said Crews, supplying an opponent's perspective.
For most of the season, Badmus' shooting woes have led teams to play off him, allowing more help down low on guys like Chris McNaughton and Donald Brown and limiting Badmus' opportunities to penetrate, where he is as dangerous as any player in the league.
"(Badmus) can get inside the core of the defense. Then if he stretches you out with those shots . . . We never thought he was a bad shooter, but you can't take everything away when they've got five guys out there that can do some things," Crews said. "We gambled and we lost that gamble."
Big time.
Badmus first trey sparked an 18-2 Bucknell run that gave the Bison a double-digit lead in a hurry. When he hit his third three-pointer, giving Bucknell a 24-6 lead with 9:09 to go in the first half, it cued a chant of "Abe's got more points" from the Sojka Pscyhos behind the south basket.
"They went in, I don't know what to say," said Badmus afterward. "I've been getting in the gym a little extra and it is really paying off."
Bison assistant coach Nate Davis, who ran the show in Flannery's absence, said the coaches knew all along Badmus was capable of shooting better than he had.
"We never got down on him. We kept encouraging him," Davis said. "We've been preaching to him not to shoot because they are daring you to. Shoot it because you want to."
The three-pointers were big for Badmus, but they were far from his only contribution. He also dished out four assists and made three steals while generally disrupting Army's offensive flow all night. Badmus brought the crowd to its feet early when he stole an inbounds pass after a Donald Brown free throw and made an acrobatic save to get the ball out to John Griffin at the top of the arc, where Griffin drained a three to give the Bison an early 11-4 lead.
Badmus was not the only thing the Bison faithful had to get excited about.
Against the Patriot League's top-ranked defense -- an Army team ranked No. 25 in the nation in field goal percentage defense coming in -- the Bison knocked down 15 of their 23 shots (65.2 percent) in the first half, including 7 of 10 from the arc and a pair of monstrous one-handed breakaway jams by Donald Brown, the second putting the Bison up 43-15 at the half.
"We shot the ball well and executed our offense extremely well," Davis said.
Army's 15 first-half points were not a record low in Sojka. That was set back in that 2004 game when the Black KNights only scored 9 points in the first half. The Black Knights 26.1 percent (6 of 23) shooting in the half also failed to threaten the ineptitude of that 2004 team, which made only 8 field goals that entire game (on 45 shots, 17.2 percent), but it was easily Army's worst offensive half of the season.
"Our focus and effort the start of the game was fantastic," said Davis, who admitted about all he had to do to coach the team on this night was "sit back and watch them go."
The Bison did not end up breaking any records, though their 57.1 percent shooting for the game and their 52.9 percent shooting from the arc were both season highs. hard to tell how those numbers might have ended up had Davis not substituted so liberally. Ten of the 12 Bison in uniform saw action in the first half. All 12 played in the second half. None of the Bison starters played more than 27 minutes and freshman Zach Evans, who played the final 2:13 of the game, was the only Bison to play less than 8.
McNaughton, who finished with 11 points on 4 for 6 shooting, left the game for good with just under 8 minutes to go. Brown, who finished with 12 points (4 of 5 from the field), 8 rebounds and 4 steals, followed McNaughton to the bench with almost six minutes still on the clock. By the 5:23 mark, with Bucknell up by 35 points after a pair of Jason Vegotsky (12 points) free throws, all five Bison starters were done for the night.
Jarrell Brown led Army with 14 points, none of which came when the game was in doubt. Brown's first bucket of the game came with 2:06 to go in the first half. By then the Bison were already ahead by 27 points. Matt Bell also reachd double figures with 11 points on 3 of 9 shooting from the floor.
The victory, Bucknell's 31st straight home win in conference play, was the Bison's fourth in a row and their eighth in their last nine outings. The Bison, who are now 12-4 since opening the season with four straight losses, enter the second half of league play solidly in second place, one game behind first place Holy Cross, which will visit Sojka in two weeks.
Box score | Post game audio (Jim Crews, Nathan Davis, Abe Badmus, Stephen Tyree) | BU photo gallery | Daily Item
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