The Patriot League named Lehigh junior C.J. McCollum its player of the year for the second time in three seasons on Monday. But with the conference tournament tipping off Wednesday night, there are perhaps more eyes on Bucknell junior Mike Muscala.
At 6-foot-11 and with the ability to shoot with either hand and from 3-point range, Muscala is a rare talent in the Patriot League. He leads defending champion and top-seeded Bucknell (22-8) against No. 8 Navy (3-25) in the opening round.
Muscala is perhaps the most unguardable player in the league, especially for a team such as Navy, which has lost 21 straight and doesn’t have a starter taller than 6-6.
“He scores. He rebounds every night. He competes every night. And he makes other guys better on the team,” Navy coach Ed DeChellis said. “I don’t think there’s any real kink in his armor.”
Muscala, last year’s Patriot League player of the year, averages 16.7 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.6 blocks a game. He also is second in the conference in field goal (50.2 percent) and free throw (84.5 percent) shooting.
According to his coach, however, Muscala’s importance goes beyond the numbers.
“He attacks every single practice, let alone every game, with a tremendous amount of passion,” said Patriot League coach of the year Dave Paulsen. “When your best player is your hardest worker and your most passionate player, that’s a pretty good ingredient to inspire his teammates.”
After he scored 26 points and pulled down 14 rebounds in a win Thursday at American, Eagles coach Jeff Jones compared Muscala’s effect on defense to that of one of his former teammates at the University of Virginia — Ralph Sampson.
“He made us all better defenders,” Jones said.
Muscala’s presence inside has helped teammate Bryan Cohen become the first Patriot League three-time defensive player of the year. With Muscala as a last line of defense, Cohen can overplay the opposition’s top scorer, as he did Thursday against AU senior Charles Hinkle, holding him to a season-low three points.
Patriot League teams hoping to end the reign of the Bison can draw hope from some vulnerabilities they’ve shown of late. After winning 20 straight games against conference competition, they lost consecutive games in a span of 46 hours, falling to Lehigh and Holy Cross. The loss to Lehigh came via a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by McCollum and helped propel the guard to the player of the year award.
Bucknell also struggled Saturday night against Navy in a 64-55 win. Four days later, they are matched up in the quarterfinals.
“[Navy] really defended hard, screened exceptionally well, were very deliberate in their half-court attack and really made us work every single second,” Paulsen said. “We’re gonna have to play better than we did on Saturday.”
In other Patriot League quarterfinal games, No. 2 Lehigh (23-7) hosts No. 7 Colgate (8-21), No. 3 American (19-10) hosts No. 6 Army (12-17) and No. 5 Lafayette (12-17) is at No. 4 Holy Cross (15-13). The semifinals are set for Saturday.
