The Lipscomb men’s basketball team fell short by a score of 86-72 against the Eastern Kentucky Colonels Tuesday night at McBrayer Arena in Richmond, Kentucky.
An EKU team without a conference win came out with fire and filled the scoresheet against the Bisons as 5 players reached double digits in scoring. Tarik Balogun scored a career-high 16 to pace the Colonels, while Devontae Blanton scored 14 and added 13 rebounds.
Point guard Braxton Beverly scored 11 points and led the game with 13 assists.
Despite efficient 42.6% shooting, the visiting Bisons never could keep pace with the offensive firepower of their opponents.
Lipscomb grabbed more rebounds, made more free throws, and scored more points in the paint, but the dagger the Bisons could never remove was EKU’s 3-point shooting. The Colonels knocked in 16-37 3-pointers, scoring 21 more points than Lipscomb from behind the arc.
Building on a career-high night Saturday versus Bellarmine, second-year freshman Will Pruitt led the team in scoring for a second consecutive game with 17 points. Pruitt, a point guard from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, shot 6-11 from the field and pulled down 6 rebounds.
True freshman guard Trae Benham contributed heavily on the offensive end, pouring in 16 points in 18 minutes. Originally from the Charlotte suburb of Concord, North Carolina, Benham shot 4-7 from deep and picked up 5 rebounds.
From the onset, EKU scored well from across the court and made defending them near-impossible for a Bisons squad that has given up 74 or more points in five straight games, all of them ASUN contests.
Pruitt put up 5 straight points at the 10-minute mark in the first half to give the Bisons a 19-17 lead early, but the Colonels went back in front with a Beverly 3-ball with 9:00 to go in the half and never looked back.
Another quick spurt down the stretch of the first period, this time from Benham, brought the Bisons within one at 36-35 with 2:31 in the half. EKU finished the half strong on a 5-2 run, though, extending their lead to 41-37 at the interval.
The home team quickly established the second half as theirs, extending the lead to 11 within 4 minutes. Lipscomb kept pace with their opponents up until the halfway point of the second half, when EKU again took over.
Two straight 3-balls put the home team up 18, their largest lead of the contest, with under 7 minutes to play. From there, the Bisons could only get within 12 twice. Beverly knocked in a layup for the final scoring of the game, handing Lipscomb their fourth straight loss.
With the loss, Lipscomb drops to 8-12 on the season with a 1-4 ASUN record. EKU earns their first ASUN victory and moves to 9-10 across the year.
Lipscomb returns home for a 1:15 p.m. Saturday afternoon tipoff against Kennesaw State at Allen Arena. That game will be broadcast live on The Bison, Lipscomb’s on-campus radio station.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics