City of Basketball Love

Will Slover (@WillSlover31)
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After honoring the late hoops legend Michael Brooks at halftime, La Salle came out of the intermission playing in a way that surely would’ve garnered a smile from the 1980 College Player of the Year.

“I thought the second half was the best we played this year. We held a terrific offensive team to 39 percent from the field, we only had three turnovers in the second half,” La Salle coach John Giannini said. “I just think that our players did exactly what they needed to do to win the game.”

After a first half in which they only briefly held a one-point lead just five minutes into the contest, the Explorers spent the rest of the frame battling from behind but never too far behind as Bucknell’s lead never grew larger than five.

Trailing by two at the intermission, La Salle ripped off a 16-4 run to start the second half that gave them a 10-point lead with just under 14 minutes remaining and the Explorers never looked back from there as they continued their strong second half play and topped Bucknell by a score of 83-73.

Perhaps more impressive than holding Bucknell to just 39 percent shooting from the field, is the fact that La Salle didn’t allow the usually sharpshooting Bison to make a three-pointer in the second half after allowing them to go 8-for-14 before the intermission.

“In the second half, without practicing, which is a big deal, we just emphasized no more threes,” said Giannini. “It’s rare that you say no threes and they actually had zero threes. Talk about following instruction. They were just terrific.”

B.J. Johnson, who had game highs of 22 points and nine rebounds, paired with senior Jordan Price to score more than half of La Salle’s points as Price finished the contest with 20.

Also contributing to the Explorers’ dominant second half were their 11 steals, which is the most they’ve had on the young season. Stemming from the steals, were 21 points scored off of turnovers for La Salle.

“We started off the second half with a couple steals, forced them into a couple of turnovers and got some momentum that carried throughout the rest of the game,” said Johnson.

For Bucknell, who is now 6-3 this season, their balanced scoring effort which consisted of four players reaching double figures, was not enough for the Bison to extend their winning streak to five.

Sam Brown and Nate Jones led the way for the Bison with 15 points a piece, and they were aided by a 12 point, five rebound, four block effort from Reading (Pa.) native Nana Foulland and 10 points from Zach Thomas. 

This win, their third in a row, brings La Salle to 4-2 on the season as they head into the toughest part of their out of conference schedule, as they take on Villanova, who will most likely be ranked #1 in the country when the weekly poll releases, on Tuesday and after that they go to battle with Georgetown in Miami on Saturday.

Saturday’s win was one that meant a lot to Giannini and the Explorers, as scheduling tough out-of-conference foes is beginning to pay off for a La Salle team that is hopeful to make the NCAA Tournament come March.

“That’s a really good team,” said Giannini. “As I’ve been saying all year, we scheduled with the RPI in mind, we wanted to play good teams. This was another really good team that we played today so we’re really thrilled.”