NASHVILLE – The Lipscomb men’s basketball team used a 28-point performance from center Ahsan Asadullah to win 74-65 over the North Florida Ospreys in the First Round of the 2022 ASUN Tournament.
“When you get to conference tournament time, it’s one and done, and I thought it was our best defensive effort tonight,” Lipscomb head coach Lennie Acuff said. “From tip to horn, I thought we played really, really hard.”
A fourth-year junior from Atlanta, Asadullah shot 12-20 from the field and added 12 rebounds and 6 assists. Asadullah was named as a First Team All-ASUN selection for the third straight year after leading the team in points, rebounds, assists, and blocks.
Graduate forward Parker Hazen added 17 points inside for the Bisons, highlighting a dominant display in the paint against UNF. Hazen added 7 rebounds and went 6-8 from the free throw line.
The Bisons only went 3-15 on three-pointers over the course of the game, with freshman Trae Benham held under 10 points for the first time in four games.
To compensate, Lipscomb scored 46 points in the paint to North Florida’s 26.
“Between [Asadullah and Hazen], you’ve got 45 points, 19 rebounds, and 9 assists, so that’s a pretty good night at the office,” Acuff said.
“Before the game, we knew that they were probably going to play us one-on-one,” Asadullah said of his matchup against the Ospreys. “I knew I had to look out for them taking charges, but I knew I had to just make the adjustment.”
UNF head coach Matthew Driscoll was complimentary of Asadullah and the difficulty he created on the evening with one-on-one matchups.
“His IQ is through the roof,” Driscoll said of Asadullah. “Everybody says in basketball to get to your sweet spot and then take your best shot. He gets to his sweet spot and makes his best play.”
Asadullah scored 12 of his points in the first half to pace the Bisons, keeping the Bisons close as UNF took an early lead at the 12:43 mark. The Ospreys extended the lead to eight with 9:47 to play, but Hazen scored four straight points down the stretch to help tie the game at 31 apiece halfway through.
Once the Bisons tied the game at the half, they never looked back. A crowd of over a thousand Bisons fans at Allen Arena created a strong atmosphere with which the Bisons jumped to an early second-half lead.
An 11-3 run was sparked by Benham’s only three-pointer of the game and bolstered by four straight points from freshman point guard Will Pruitt, who led the game with 36 minutes.
Sophomore forward Kaleb Coleman knocked down a three-ball to extend the lead to 48-38 with less than 14 minutes to play, and from there, Lipscomb found a way to keep UNF at bay the rest of the way.
Coleman, who had not played more than six minutes in a contest since December, put in nine minutes and produced three points and two rebounds off the bench for the Bisons.
“When you coach, you try to always value the person,” Acuff said. “You always praise and encourage attitude and effort and you reward performance. [Coleman] checks the first two boxes every day, and his practices the last month have been really good. He just ket playing well, and that says a lot about who he is.”
The closest the Ospreys came was at the 3:17 mark via a shot from deep by Jarius Hicklen to cut the lead to 65-60. Lipscomb converted on seven of eight free throws down the stretch to finish the job, advancing to play perennial conference rivals Liberty in the ASUN Quarterfinal.
While the 4-seed Bisons will be considered a heavy underdog against the East Division’s top team, there is plenty of belief on the Purple and Gold’s sideline.
“You can right a lot of wrongs in a week,” Acuff said, “and that’s reality. For us, we have nothing to lose Thursday night. We’re going to try to have a good plan, and our guys will be confident.”
The Bisons travel to Liberty Arena in Lynchburg, Virginia, for a 6 p.m. tip Thursday night in the ASUN Quarterfinal. That game will be streamed live on The Bison, Lipscomb’s on-campus radio station.
Photo by CJ Arndt