LEWISBURG -- With a wink, Dave Paulsen said the play that changed Saturday's game at Sojka Pavilion worked just the way the Bucknell coach drew it up.
Patrick Behan, whose off-balance running one-hander gave the Bison a lead they would never relinquish, said it was a play they work on all the time in practice.
Justin Castleberry? He was just worried that Behan never called "glass" on his bank shot.
No matter what story you choose to believe or not to believe, the only thing that really mattered Saturday night was the growth the Bison showed. Bucknell rallied from a double-digit deficit in the second half to edge Drexel 81-75, scoring a Pavilion record 54 second-half points to win their second game in a row.
"That was a really gratifying victory," said Paulsen, whose team is now 3-6. "We played very well in the second half. We showed a lot of resiliency and character."
Freshman Bryan Cohen scored 16 points, Castleberry scored all 20 of his points in the second half and Behan poured in a team-high 22, none more important than his jumper at the end of the shot clock in the final minute.
The Bison held a 73-72 lead with less than a minute to play when they ran the shot clock down. G.W. Boon had to chase an inbounds pass down in the backcourt and then got the ball to Behan, a junior from Leesburg, Va., late in the shot click. Behan drove to his left and pulled up just inside the foul line with a defender in his face. He threw up a one-handed shot that banked in to put the Bison up three and the Dragons (2-5) never got closer than two the rest of the way.
"I got the ball with seven or eight seconds left," said Behan, cracking a smile. "I didn't have to call glass, that's the way the play works."
"That's what we drew up," Paulsen said jokingly. "Any shot that goes in at that point is a good shot."
For Dragons coach Bruiser Flint, whose team shot a scorching 54 percent in the first half, it came down to the Bison making the plays in the crunch while Drexel did not.
"What are you going to do?" Flint asked rhetorically. "The kid hit a runner with two seconds on the clock. Give Bucknell all the credit. They made plays when they had to."
Bucknell seemed to make all the plays in the second half after a sub-par first 20 minutes.
Drexel, statistically one of the worst shooting teams in Division I, built a 10-point lead late in the first half and held an eight-point margin at the break thanks to a strong-shooting first half. But when the second half started, the Dragons saw something they had not seen on film. In fact, it was something no Bucknell opponent had seen until the Bison came out in a zone to start the half.
With five days between games, Paulsen and his coaching staff were able to implement a new defense, giving Bucknell the option to switch out of its aggressive man-to-man and into a zone at a moment's notice.
"We just wanted to throw something different at them," said Castleberry, who became the first BU player since Kevin Bettencourt in 2003 to scored 20 points in a half. "We were able to add some wrinkles at practice and we were able to practice them a couple of times and it really helped."
The switch on defense cooled off the Dragons and also got the Bison in transition. That led to easy baskets at the other end, limiting the amount of pressure Drexel was able to put on the ball each trip down the court.
After making just 8-of-23 shots in the first half, Bucknell hit 8 of its first 11 after intermission, ripping off a 22-7 run to take a 47-45 lead with less than 13 minutes to play.
From then on the lead changed hands 10 times before Daryl Shazier's layup with 1:31 left put BU up 73-71. That set up Behan's circus shot and a wild finish that saw Flint get tossed from the game and Bucknell hit six free throws in the final minute -- including three from Castleberry following double-technical to Flint -- that iced the game.
"This game shows how we've matured emotionally since the season started," said Paulsen, noting Saturday's victory was likely a game the Bison would not have won a month ago. "You have to be able to bounce back when bad things happen, and we did that."
Sports
Behan's bank shot completes Bison's comeback victory
Behan's bank shot completes Bison's rally
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