LORETTO, Pa. (Nov. 22, 2008) – Junior forward Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) nailed 8-of-10 field goal attempts and tallied a career high 19 points, and senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) scored nine of his 14 points in the final five minutes to lift the Saint Francis men's basketball team to a thrilling 69-59 overtime victory over in-state rival Bucknell before 1,628 fans on Saturday night at DeGol Arena.

It marked the first career Division I victory for first-year SFU head coach Don Friday, who compiled an 83-49 mark in five seasons as head man at Division III Lycoming. The Red Flash have now won two straight games against the Bison. Friday served as an assistant coach at Bucknell from 1994-2003. Assistant coach Abe Badmus played for the Bison from 2003-07.

Jukic added six rebounds and a critical steal in the extra session, and Nelson scored all 14 of his points at the charity stripe by making 14-of-15 attempts. Junior Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) recorded his eighth career double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds to go with two steals in 40 minutes of action. He was 8-of-10 from the foul line.

As a team, the Red Flash made 34-of-39 attempts (87.2 percent) from the stripe, and continue to lead the Northeast Conference in free throw efficiency at 86.3 percent.

Bryan Cohen paced the Bison with 22 points and five rebounds.

Saint Francis held an eight point advantage, 42-34, with 6:43 remaining in regulation, but Bucknell finished on a 14-6 run after Cohen hit the back end of a pair of free throws with 19 seconds remaining to force overtime with the score tied at 48-48.

But the Red Flash came out firing with the first nine points of overtime, including five by Jukic and four by Nelson, to take a 57-48 lead with 1:33 to go. Zach Evans hit a 3-pointer to cut that lead to six, but senior Kyle Jackson (Bolingbrook, IL /Plainfield Central ) (Bolingbrook, Ill. / Plainfield Central) made a pair of free throws to extend that lead to eight points with 1:20 left, and the Bison would never get closer than six the rest of the way.

The game featured six ties and 11 lead changes. Bucknell (0-3) took its largest lead of the game early on when Cohen hit a 3-pointer to make it 6-2. Senior Steve Profeta (Carnegie, PA /Chartiers Valley ) (Carnegie, Pa. / Chartiers Valley) answered with a 3-pointer of his own to make it 6-5, and neither team led by more than three points the rest of the first half.

Saint Francis took a 21-20 lead into the break. Junior Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ) (Johnstown, Pa. / Johnstown) and Sweetney had four points each, and Jukic hit a jumper for a 10-1 run to start the second half. The Bison were held without a field goal for the first 7:21 of the second stanza. However, they answered with a 7-0 run of their own to pull within 31-28.

Bucknell pulled to within 33-31 on a 3-pointer by Cohen, but Justin Castleberry fouled Nelson in the act of shooting from outside the arc. Nelson made him pay by making all three free throw attempts.

Jukic's layup with 6:43 remaining gave SFU an eight point lead at 42-34, but the Bison began to chip away. G.W. Boon hit a pair of free throws with 2:23 remaining, Cohen made the back end of a pair of free throws, and Patrick Behan nailed a jumper with 58 seconds remaining to turn a 46-42 Red Flash lead into a 47-46 Bucknell lead. Sweetney made a pair of free throws to give the lead back at 48-47 with 45 seconds to go. Cohen drew another foul and a pair of free throws with 19 seconds left. However, he missed his first attempt in tying the game, and the Red Flash capitalized by outscoring the Bison 21-11 in the five minute overtime.


Head Coach Don Friday (Opening Statement):
First off, I'm really proud of the way my kids have hung in there the last several days coming off some tough games. I told you before that I thought we were a work in progress. What was nice to see tonight was that we are starting to show some continuity where we can go out and we can will our style and we can keep five guys on the same page. Tonight we were fortunate that we put more of those strings together. We have not been doing that. We've been playing 26, 27 minutes. The one common denominator now you've got to realize that I'm a guy out of Pat Flannery's system, and what he's done. I have a real father, but then I have a professional father and that's Pat Flannery. We've really hung our guy, this team right now is trying to hang our hat on defense. And I thought that even though they hit some big shots down the stretch, I thought that we did a pretty good job with all of that moving and cutting. I thought our kids, we really hung our hats on the defensive end of the floor. The second half, we had talked about we only went to the free throw line five times. Now if you look there, they were forced to foul late, so it skewed those free throws. But I still thought that we were able to get to the free throw line and get some of those freebies and spread them and drive it. Looking at this win right now, we are going to enjoy this one tonight. Certainly the young man sitting to my right, Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy), he had a big part of that. It's very comforting when you know at any level when you have an inside presence that you can go to him kind of like a big brother. Those perimeter guys run around and shoot jump shots. And I thought tonight we did a better job of that as a ball club. And our kids really had a lot of confidence in him, as well as his coach, and we look to continue to get better and better from this point. As I told our kids tonight, let the jerseys on a little bit longer. This program needs to have a winning feeling. Let that winning feeling sink in. Good kids who work hard deserve good things, an tonight I thought we did that.”

You win a game with your second leading scorer not scoring a point. How did you make up for that?
“I thought tonight that we got some very good balance from the free throw line. We got to the free throw line. I thought Nelson had a tremendous night with driving it. And I think with Mislav being able to go in there. For the first time since we've been here, we really had an inside presence there. At halftime, I told the guys that they were shooting a lot of jump shots. I made it a point that we were really going to go out in the second half and get (Mislav) involved. Whether it was going to be starting him off away from the ball. But we needed to stretch the floor a little bit. They are very sticky man to man where they let you get to the middle but there's always three or four guys in there in the lane. And I felt that if we could stretch them and we could get him in there in single coverage, then we could get the ball in to him. What we couldn't let happen was the way that (Patrick) Behan shoots the '3.' If Mislav was going to chase Behan around the whole night, but Mislav wasn't going to post up and make Behan play him inside then we were in the wrong domain. We wanted to make sure that (Behan) had to play him. (Mislav) really made some big shots, and I think that settled our guys down on the perimeter.”

Red Flash Junior Forward Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy)
Best game of your career. What did this mean to you?
“I've been waiting for this opportunity the last few years. Now I'm the starting center. I'm working hard, I've been working hard with a new coach. I mean it was a complete team effort, but today was me who stood out. Other games it will be somebody else. I'm just happy we won our first game.”

Bucknell Head Coach Dave Paulsen:
“Certainly you want to give credit to Saint Francis. I've been impressed with them on tape. I was telling our guys that they would play well in for spurts against American for sure, and definitely against Duquesne. Tonight, the first credit should go to Don and his guys. I thought they played well. Their defense had something to do with our offensive struggles, but at the end of the day I told our guys that we can play poorly, but play poorly and make free throws and would could have sneaked out of town with a win. That one really hurts.”

Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) gave you some trouble inside. Was he doing anything particular?
“I was impressed with him as well on tape. I think they are getting the ball in to him. The credit should go to him. He made some good post moves in the paint, and was a key for them because that took some of the pressure off of Sweetey and Ford and some of those guys. So the large attribution should go to him, but a good dose of that should also go to our poor interior defense as well. We allowed him to catch it way too deep, and that's a concern.”