OPENING TIP
* Lafayette is looking to momentum to help conquer its demons at Sojka Pavilion on Monday evening in its second national television contest of the 2019-20 campaign. The Leopards have lost nine-straight outings against Bucknell, falling to the Bison at home in this season's first meeting on Jan. 8, 78-66. 
* Junior Justin Jaworski dropped a career-high 32 points in the last time out on Saturday, an 82-70 victory over American. Down by nine with 6:22 remaining, Jaworski scored 14 of the Leopards' final 30 points to close on a 30-9 run and secure Lafayette's second three-game win streak of conference play.
* Bucknell is looking to end a two-game skid, falling to Boston U. on Saturday by a 77-57 score.

LAST TIME OUT
Junior Justin Jaworski was almost impossible to stop on Saturday afternoon at Kirby Sports Center, netting a career-high 32 points, including a from-the-logo dagger with 2:21 to play, to power Lafayette past American by a final of 82-70.

Down 61-52 with 6:22 to play, Jaworski went on a tear as his four-point play on a three through a foul from the right corner began a game-closing run of 30-9 for the Maroon and White. Fourteen of those 30 came at the hands of the junior co-captain who hit an even bigger shot late.

Up 67-65 with 2:21 on the game clock and the shot clock ticking down under 10, he pulled up from the second 'T' in the Lafayette center-court logo and barely hit the rim as the ball went through the cylinder, a dagger to American's hopes of a comeback. On the ensuing possession, senior co-captain Lukas Jarrett emphatically sent back a falling-away layup attempt from American's Sa'eed Nelson, the preseason Patriot League Player of the Year, as Lafayette free throws finished it off with an 82-70 final.

Jaworski's career night was his second 30-point outing of the season after dropping 31 on Saint Joseph's on Dec. 3 in Philadelphia. The junior is averaging 17.5 points per game this season and the 32-point game is the highest by a Lafayette player since Matt Klinewski '18 scored 34 against Boston U. on Jan. 8, 2017. Additionally, his four triples moved his career total to 200, one of just eight Leopards to reach the milestone.

Classmate E.J. Stephens was another Leopard that accompanied Jaworski effectively on Saturday afternoon, finishing within a bucket of his career-high for the seventh time this season with 18 points on 10-of-11 from the foul line. Stephens added four assists, three rebounds and a steal while drawing six fouls, a game-high in the aggressiveness statistic.

Jarrett did pretty much everything else for the Maroon and White, coming up one field goal shy of a double-double with eight points and a game-high 11 rebounds. The senior dished out four assists and blocked a season-best four shots to move into third on Lafayette's all-time career blocks list with 111.

The victory propels the Leopards to 14-7 overall this season and 6-4 in Patriot League action, while American falls to 10-11 on the year and 6-4 as well in conference play. Coupled with the women's basketball team's 67-52 victory in Washington, D.C., the two programs have now won a combined six straight games with three straight sweeps of Lehigh, Colgate and American.

LAST MEETING
Lafayette controlled the opening half in the Patriot League home opener on Jan. 8 at Kirby Sports Center, but Bucknell came out in the second half on fire, using a 17-0 run to swing the momentum in its favor and drop the Leopards by a final of 78-66.

The Bison shot 7-for-12 from distance in the second 20 minutes of action and made 20-of-36 from the field (55.6%) with just two turnovers. On the other side, Lafayette followed up a 39-30 halftime lead with just 27 points in the second, making 2-of-15 from distance (13.3%) and 9-of-27 from the field (33.3%) in the second stanza.

Junior E.J. Stephens was a bright spot for the Leopards tying a game-high with 15 points on 7-of-8 from the foul line, an aggressive performance. The Plantation, Florida native added five rebounds and three assists without a turnover.

Classmate Justin Jaworski added 13 points and freshman Leo O'Boyle scored a season-best 12 points on four threes, while senior Myles Cherry added 11 with seven rebounds to round out the double-figure performances.

THOUSAND ISLAND
With his 19-point effort in the win over Holy Cross on Jan. 8, junior Justin Jaworski became the 46th player in Lafayette men's basketball history to record more than 1,000 career points. Jaworski has netted 1,120 total points in his two-plus seasons of work and sits 33rd on Lafayette's all-time scoring list. 

THE SKINNY ON THE BISON
Bucknell, picked to finish second in the Patriot League preseason poll, opened the league campaign with wins in four of its first six, but has struggled as of late with losses in three of its last four, including the last time out, a 77-57 loss at home to Boston U. on Saturday. The Bison sit at 5-5 in league action and 9-14 overall, but certainly have the ability to go on a run as the season moves toward crunch time. 

Bucknell boasts a balanced attack with four players averaging double-figure scoring, led by John Meeks' 12.3 points per game. Jimmy Sotos, Avi Toomer and Andrew Funk add 11.9, 11.6 and 10.7 points per outing, respectively, while Paul Newman paces the Bison on the glass at 5.2 rebounds per night.

CHASING KLINEWSKI
Scoring 32 points in a game is bound to check a few milestones of your list and that was certainly the case after junior Justin Jaworski's performance against American on Saturday. Jaworski, who dropped 31 on Saint Joseph's earlier this year, is the first Leopard since Matt Klinewski '18 to record a pair of 30-point games in a single season as Klinewski recorded three in his junior campaign in 2016-17. Klinewski is the only Lafayette player in the Patriot League era to reach the 30-point mark three times in a single year.

FIREPOWER OFF THE BENCH
Lafayette treats its starters much differently than most programs in that the five that start are very unlikely to be the five counted on for a lion's share of the production. The Maroon and White are the only team in the nation with two of their top-three scorers coming off the bench as E.J. Stephens and Myles Cherry put up 11.2 and 11.0 points per game, respectively, with just one start between them in 2019-20.

While freshman Leo O'Boyle gets the start over Stephens, Stephens averages 14.9 more minutes, and the same goes for Cherry, who averages 16.3 more minutes per outing than freshman Neal Quinn, who has started each of the last 11 games.