LYNCHBURG, Virginia – Hard work pays off–except for the days when it doesn’t.
For a Lipscomb team that came into an ASUN Quarterfinal game at East 1-seed Liberty with a 5.6% chance of winning according to ESPN, hard work simply came five points short of being enough.
In a defensive slugfest at state-of-the-art Liberty Arena, the Flames earned one final ASUN Tournament win over the Bisons in a 52-47 decision.
“What a hard-fought basketball game,” Lipscomb head coach Lennie Acuff said. “It probably wasn’t the prettiest thing to watch on either end, but… I was unbelievably proud of our team tonight.”
“That was really hard-fought,” Liberty head coach Ritchie McKay said. “I was proud of our group that we didn’t play as efficiently as we had been on the offensive end, but we found a way to pull one out.”
Holding a 7-5 record against Lipscomb in the all-time series, Liberty is now 3-0 over Lipscomb in ASUN Tournament matchups, the first two of which were ASUN Championships. Now that Liberty will depart for Conference USA next year, it’s possible that this was Lipscomb’s last chance to beat their recent rivals in a postseason matchup.
The story throughout the game was a combination of pure scoring from a pair of dueling guards and excellent defense from both squads.
Darius McGhee, who is second nationally in points per game, led Liberty with 26 points on 10-25 shooting and scored half of the Flames’ points on the evening.
On the other side of the ball was true freshman Trae Benham, who continued his late-season run of form with a team-leading 21 points and his third 20-plus-point performance in five games.
“[Benham] was not playing at all when the conference started, but he kept coming to practice every day and every day he’s playing well,” Acuff said. “He’s really moved the needle for us in the last month. I mean, he was in high school last year. I don’t think he took a bad three, I thought all those were going in.”
Benham’s 9-20 shooting, including all three of Lipscomb’s made three-pointers on the night, wasn’t enough to will the Bisons to a win, but it certainly wasn’t far from doing so. A shoot-first guard from Concord, North Carolina, Benham transitioned to scoring layups on the drive in the first half as Lipscomb went 0-6 from deep.
“I thought our effort was fantastic; [Liberty] went 6-32 [from the three-point line], but we reciprocated by going 3-20,” Acuff said. “[But] I thought we got a lot of great looks. It’s been 32 years for me [as a coach], and I can guarantee you that ain’t nobody trying to miss them. We just didn’t get it to go in tonight.”
Meanwhile, offensive adversity also appeared via a tough day for junior center Ahsan Asadullah, who only played eight minutes in the first half due to foul trouble. The Atlanta native finished with 10 points but shot just 5-14 despite shooting above 50% on field goals for the season.
“Ahsan didn’t have his best night, but late in the game we went to him and he scored it for us a couple of times big,” Acuff said. “I’m riding or dying with him… we’ll keep throwing it to him next year, I promise you.”
Despite all the struggles with scoring, Lipscomb kept themselves in the game through their defense. A Liberty team that averages nearly 75 points per game was held to just 23 in the first half on just 26.7% shooting.
The Flames used a hot start from McGhee to stretch their lead to eight points on two occasions in the first ten minutes. The lead was 17-9 when McGhee finished an off-balance layup at the 10:08 mark, but the visitors allowed just six points in the rest of the half en route to a 24-23 lead at the break.
“I just felt like we were down because we weren’t as efficient offensively,” McKay said, “and in the second half I thought we were much more attentive to detail.”
That set up a second half where there was rarely a lead larger than one possession. Asadullah started the scoring on a putback, and McGhee quickly responded with a layup at the other end.
Back-and-forth buckets would prove to be the theme of the second half, as the lead changed seven times in the second half before the final media timeout.
With 3:06 left, Asadullah knocked in a hook shot in the paint to cut a Liberty lead to 46-45. On the next possession, junior guard Greg Jones picked up one of four steals on the night, but the Bisons wasted the opportunity to retake the lead with an errant pass.
That turnover was one of just five for the Bisons, while Liberty committed eight turnovers. The Flames did outscore Lipscomb 5-4 on points off turnovers, however.
McGhee went down and scored again for Liberty with under two minutes left, making the lead 48-45. Benham tried to tie the game on a right-wing three, but his effort missed.
Liberty was then able to move the clock down to 44 seconds after getting an offensive rebound and using two full shot clocks. With one more opportunity to tie the game, graduate forward Parker Hazen tried a three from the wing that rimmed out, and the Flames made their free throws to finish the game.
“I thought we had a good plan,” Acuff said. “We talked about trying to get game pressure on them, we wanted to get the game inside the last five minutes. At the end of the day, they’ve got Darius McGhee, and he’s an awfully good player.”
With the loss, Lipscomb’s season is over after a disappointing campaign. The Bisons finished with a 6-10 ASUN record, posting a losing conference record for the first time since 2015-16, while going 13-18 overall.
Liberty advances to host West 2-seed Bellarmine 6 p.m. Saturday evening in Lynchburg.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics