Only 11 seats (all singles) still available! I guess more may come available if Lehigh turns any back in. They're on break all this week.

On a random note, why the hell does the description for the Lehigh basketball message board say, "Humiliating Kansas in the NCAA tournament once wasn’t enough. This time, we need to do it again."? Am I missing something? Didn't Kansas beat them by double digits? Did the genius who created that board get Bucknell and Lehigh confused?

The semi with Lafayette was a good crowd and the students did a decent job as well. Looks like it will be a packed house on Wednesday and I hope the roof comes off the place as the Bison are putting a beatdown on the 'Hawks (okay, wishful thinking on the beatdown part).

Speaking of the championship game, this may have been covered previously, but I'm wondering what people think about the Wednesday night championship game. I kind of liked the Friday @ 4:00 thing 'cause there was not much else going on at that time and more eyes were potentially on the PL. But I also like the evening aspect of Wednesday. One thing I will miss is the ESPN showing, simply b/c we do not get CBS Sports Network and I'd like to TiVo it. Just curious what the consensus is on this topic.

I also think the ESPN announcers are generally better (definitely better than Vince Curran).

Lehigh barely drew 1333 to Stabler yesterday. It is laughable to think that they will be able to sell all of those to Lehigh fans, and if a booster ever bought them to let them go to waste, it would be an absolute embarrassment to the league and the PL would have to immediately intervene and let Bucknell sell extra "standing room only" tickets.

The Lehigh athletics website's article about the American game says Lehigh's tickets for the final will go on sale at 7 pm "tonight" (which was last night) and gave a link to buy tickets online. However, as of this morning, it does not look like their tickets are on sale. Since there is no way they can sell 1333, I doubt there will be a requirement to have a Lehigh ID, so I would suggest Bison fans without tickets buy through the Lehigh website when available.

On a random note, why the hell does the description for the Lehigh basketball message board say, "Humiliating Kansas in the NCAA tournament once wasn’t enough. This time, we need to do it again."? Am I missing something? Didn't Kansas beat them by double digits? Did the genius who created that board get Bucknell and Lehigh confused?

• BUFan Said:

Spring Break!

So, it looks like Lehigh is going to protect their tickets by requiring a promo code to purchase. I guess Bison fans could try e-mailing that e-mail address to get the promo code...Or find a Lehigh alum or student willing to share the code

• norcalfan Said:

Spring Break doesn't affect Lehigh attendance much, since few students attend most games. Based on attendance, you might think Spring Break lasts from November 15th to March 15th.

I am not hurt, just sad for the players. In my rush to answer the question, I was not clear. I was simply saying that it is Spring Break and therefore less students will attend because there are none.

Yes, LU had and has great players, but for whatever reason, no one in the LU community is interested. Honestly, I was surprised that they had over 1000 in attendance at this game. Lack of attendance must make it hard to play hard. So far they have done well with no fan support. I can only imagine how much better they would play if they had the attendance of BU. Many of their players come from a rather large high school support base.

• norcalfan Said:

I live near Lehigh/Lafayette and get a local paper (Express Times) High school sports, especially wrestling but also HS hoops dominate at this time of year. Usually, LU and LC appear somewhere inside the sports section. Today, they were on the front page (bottom half)which is quite rare. No wonder no one goes to Stabler. LC draws a little better because students and locals can walk. But HS sports rule the Lehigh Valley.

Basically, the only school/community that really cares about PL basketball is Bucknell's.

HC cared for a bit during the Willard years but couldn't care less about PL basketball now.

Lehigh is returning 500 tickets
http://www.bucknellbison.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec- ...

Sagarin ranks Lehigh #97 and Bucknell #105...with home court, however, it indicates the Bison are a 2.9-point favorite.

Neither realtimerpi nor rpiforecast have a prediction for this game. Does anyone know KenPom's?

sometimes the motivation created by just getting aced out one year can exceed the motivation of just wanting to get back.

• bison63 Said:

True...and in the American-Lafayette broadcast, they quoted McCollum as saying that the loss in last year's semifinal was fueling him all season long.

I remember many days back in the late 80's and early 90's where Davis Gym, that sat 2200, was more than half empty for competitive league games.

I think interest and passion are somewhat cyclical.

I remember many days back in the late 80's and early 90's where Davis Gym, that sat 2200, was more than half empty for competitive league games.

I think interest and passion are somewhat cyclical.

Are you thinking of games taking place in January? Because remember during that time, there was "Jan Plan" where much of the student body wasn't on campus.

I have terrific memories of spending my "JanPlan" at Davis Gym. One experience was particularly memorable. The Bison were playing American in January 1980 at Davis. American coached by none other than Gary Williams was the favorite but the Bison won with a late game rally scoring over 100 points. Williams went nuts towards the end of the game getting T-ed up and ejected. I still remember him walking off the court with the fans harassing him. My guess is that Davis sold out in those days as well.

Don't see it anywhere in the notes, but am I right that this is the first Lehigh-Bucknell championship-game clash since our 1985 OT loss?

Don't see it anywhere in the notes, but am I right that this is the first Lehigh-Bucknell championship-game clash since our 1985 OT loss?

Three from Youtube to get fired up for the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bpJ4Nv-BA8&a mp;fea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UKnt4dSJ_E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXjW-readMxHX 9o&...

Those attendance numbers for 1992 an 1993 seem off however. Those numbers suggest a standing room only crowd in every home game. That wasn't the case.

• HuskyColonial Said:

Are you sure the Davis capacity at that point was still only 2200? I have no idea, but it certainly changed a few times over the years.


Edit: I see Wikipedia states the following, which they attribute to a Bucknell site:

"Following renovations in the 1990s to add reserved seats, Davis Gym's listed capacity was 2500, though on occasion standing room crowds exceeded that."

BRW, I just noticed your 0-5 record. Any comments?

Looks like they want to keep the fire marshal happy tonight...Per the BU website, no standing room only tickets will be sold. I wonder if that is because they will allow more students to overflow their sections.

• BUFan Said:

Do they usually offer SRO tickets?

Does anyone know if there are any ways to get it via the internet? No CBS College Sports and no babysitters.

Edit - Abdelnaby is calling the game for Westwood One radio (I wonder what national radio stations are picking up the game)

• Gmoney89 Said:

It's listed here: http://www.firstrowsports.eu/sport/basketball.html

Bucknell start was lethargic while Lehigh got off to a quick start. Strangely, the noisy crowd of over 4000 seemed to work against home team Bucknell, the players looking nervous and confused. The Lehigh players, who aren't used to such crowds, seemed to thrive on the packed arena environment.

Lehigh earned their victory. And Bucknell was not embarrassed, coming ever so close to winning it on a last possession with 26 seconds left.

It is 8:50, and it looks like the tickets are sold out. Did anyone go on right at 8:30 to get a feel for how many more Lehigh returned?

• BUFan Said:

Not an issue anymore, but sources indicate they returned about 500 more tickets. Ended up keeping perhaps 350.

Had HC made the PL final, there would have been about 100 HC fans at the game last night.

Good luck in the NIT...we won that tourney when it actually meant something in 1954.

• Bison137 Said:

So I guess a little more than the 150-200 you 'knew' we could sell

• LU06 Said:

As more info comes out, it appears the LU ticket sales may not have been much greater than my estimate of 200. LU returned 1000 - indicating they sold or held onto maybe 333. However I discovered that the LU "code" to buy tickets on their site was known by many on the BU campus and used by students to buy blocks of tickets. One of my kids knows of 37 tickets (in 5 blocks) that were sold by LU to BU students. The number is likely significantly greater than that.

• LU06 Said:

As more info comes out, it appears the LU ticket sales may not have been much greater than my estimate of 200. LU returned 1000 - indicating they sold or held onto maybe 333. However I discovered that the LU "code" to buy tickets on their site was known by many on the BU campus and used by students to buy blocks of tickets. One of my kids knows of 37 tickets (in 5 blocks) that were sold by LU to BU students. The number is likely significantly greater than that.

• LU06 Said:

As more info comes out, it appears the LU ticket sales may not have been much greater than my estimate of 200. LU returned 1000 - indicating they sold or held onto maybe 333. However I discovered that the LU "code" to buy tickets on their site was known by many on the BU campus and used by students to buy blocks of tickets. One of my kids knows of 37 tickets (in 5 blocks) that were sold by LU to BU students. The number is likely significantly greater than that.

Based on your need to continue posting about the attendance on another school's board, it is apparent that you're embarrassed by the poor support LU gets. I know it also bothers a lot of other LU fans as well, as it has often been discussed on the LU board as well. It's too bad because the current LU team deserves a lot better. They played an excellent game Wednesday and had a very good year.

They are in fact a nice team. they did not get much of a contribution from Greiner vs us, but Knutsen was awesome, as was I thought McKnight, and of course CJ. A simple case of really wanting it and aggressively going after it.

And so overall the lack of support they get game in and game out is lamentable, but for two games in a row they got a nice fan showing in Sojka, and those fans had a great time, and contributed to a great atmosphere in the building and they got the big prize and good for them. I hope they do well in the NCAA, and I suspect that this team playing the way they are right now, will do better than we would have, playing the way we are right now.

Now let's get'em next year. I don't think the CJ to the NBA talk will amount too very much. We probably got a glimpse of what next year will look like if we do not come up with a way to force them into our game sans BC. Even with him, they pretty much had it their way on Wednesday.

I don't think our guys problem is a talent issue, I think, as we saw all year when we played good competition, we just have not learned to take that next step. We were probably all lead astray by the win at LU, which I think a lot of us penciled in as a loss. Then going 10-0, lulled us further to sleep. Clearly, we did not get better as the season wore on. It will be interesting to see what next year brings. Still beats the hell out of 7-23.

Well-written piece by Bill Bowman, thanks for sharing the link.

As for the LU vs. BU comparisons and looking ahead to next year, I would like to make several of my own observations:

1) The Fitz Factor-- Expect to see more and more of the Fitz next year. He can do the dirty work and play right hand man to MM. He looked good at the end of the year and is a tough match-up inside.

2) Need More Assists and Easy Buckets-- I agree with LU06 here. We live and die by the 3-pointer too much, and except for MM, don't get many easy baskets at all. Playing Fitz more would yield some more inside game and lay-ups.

Our PG's averaged only 2 FG attempts per game this year, and only 2 assists per game. Not enough.

3) Creators--Help Wanted: We absolutely need more "dribble drive penetration" as they say on TV! Kaspar has the ability and started to flash it again at the end of the season. He just needs to finish better and hit his FT's. Kaspar will be the starting PG next year. I'd like to see Ayers become more of a creator than he is-- needs to get stronger. He has the shot and the smarts.

4) Slashers--Help Wanted: Hardest type of player to recruit in the PL as these athletic 2's or 3's get gobbled up by other conferences. But we need one badly. Maybe Singleton can fill this role next year. Won't shoot the 3 but will slash by you to the hoop. We have enough 3 point bombers, especially when you consider Brackney emerged to some degree late in the year.

5) FT's and more FT's: Good and bad news here after reviewing our stats thru the PL championship game. MM shot well over 200 FT's and made 85% of them (!) but his total FT's equalled the total for the rest of the starting five combined! Not good. McCollum shot over 200 FT's and Knutson shot something like 135. Both hit over 80%. FT's come from aggressive play and drives to the hoop where you beat your man.

Bottom line is that we became too reliant on MM down the stretch of the season. We need more aggressive PG play, more slashes to the hoop, and some more muscle too. We're a little soft. Maybe more minutes from Fitz and some help from Dom Hoffman could change that.

Overall, it sure beats the heck out of 7-23! I am not complaining about this season, just want us to turn it up one notch next year.