On a day that saw the Lipscomb men’s and women’s basketball, men’s soccer and volleyball teams all play home games, the Bisons almost finished the marathon undefeated. The men’s basketball team provided the nightcap for the day, taking down Berry College 91-70 in their season opener.
Head coach Casey Alexander played everyone on the roster early and often, including the four freshmen and one transfer new to the team.
Even with usual starter Malcolm Smith not dressing out, the Bisons had more than enough players to go around.
“We went into the game with the intention of giving everybody as many minutes as we could and spreading those out, and we were able to stick with it” Alexander said, “it wasn’t nearly as pretty as we wanted it to be, but that [the subbing strategy] was by design.”
With many players subbing in and out throughout the game, the Bisons were able to keep fresh bodies in the game constantly in an effort to keep their pace at a high level. Lipscomb was forcing turnovers and scoring off of fast breaks all night, especially during an 11-5 run to start the second half.
Berry College was never able to recover from the Bisons run to begin the first half. Lipscomb continued to push the ball, and the quick pace resulted in two big breakaway dunks from Josh Williams, the night’s leading scorer with 32 points on 9-15 shooting.
Senior Martin Smith filled up the stat sheet in the win. Smith finished with 14 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists.
Out of all the Bisons debuting on the night, freshman point guard Nathan Moran had the best performance, finishing with 10 points, 5 rebounds and two assists as the second unit’s main ball-handler. Alexander thought Moran had the best debut of the new Bisons.
“I think Nathan Moran played with the most confidence, and probably made the biggest contribution” said Alexander, “I think they all had their moments, but, as should be the case, they’ve got a lot of room to grow.”
Sophomore Brett Wisham and freshman Aaron Korn each notched 9 points for the Bisons on the night.
The Bisons will be back in action Monday night against Belmont for the season’s first iteration of the Battle of the Boulevard.
Lumination will have recaps of all the weekend’s games, so be sure to check back here for them.
Photo from Lipscomb athletics