by Anastasia Davis | Jan 20, 2020 | News Slider, Sports
A Lipscomb teacher and student have made it to the NFL. Tom Bancroft, artist-in-residence in animation and former Disney animator, has been working on a new project this football season. The illustrated “Titan Man” has been seen going up against a new rival each week leading up to Sunday’s heartbreaking 35-24 loss in the AFC Championship battle with the Kansas City Chiefs. With the help of Hayley Mullins a senior animation major from Erlanger, Kentucky, Bancroft has completed 17 illustrations for the season. Mullins is one of 70 in Lipscomb University’s animation program. Mullins said she has gained invaluable experience with her mentor. “I never thought I’d be able to work with an NFL team,” Mullins said. “I learned a lot working on this project. I wanted to depict the other mascots fairly when coloring, and while it is a form of ‘trash talk,’ I wanted to be as accurate as I could.” Each week during the season, Bancroft began the process of creating “Titan Man” and his next showdown. He began the process by creating two to five rough sketches and worked throughout the week while receiving feedback from the Titans about the finalized design before handing it over to Mullins for coloring. The process took most of the week, finished in time for the Saturday deadline. As with any project, there were some challenges. One restriction was that none of the animal mascots were to be “hurt” in the illustrations. This request came from Tennessee Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk, an avid animal rights activist. “It was a good eye-opener for us to hit that right...
by Tyler Harvey | Jan 15, 2020 | News Slider, Sports
The Tennessee Titans are one win away from advancing to the Super Bowl. The Titans defeated the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore Saturday night 28-12. Turnovers, unsuccessful fourth-down conversions, and Derrick Henry proved to be too much for the No. 1 seed Ravens to overcome. The Ravens led the NFL this season in scoring by averaging 33.2 PPG, but the Titans defense stopped Baltimore from even scoring a touchdown until the fourth quarter. On the Raven’s first offensive drive Baltimore drove down the field 44-yards before quarterback Lamar Jackson threw an interception that was tipped into the hands of Titans safety Kevin Byard. Once the Titans had the momentum from the turnover, they marched down the field and scored a touchdown thanks to a one-handed catch by tight-end, Jonnu Smith. On the Ravens second drive, Baltimore lost even more momentum when they were unsuccessful in converting a fourth-and-one after Jackson was tackled before he could even gain a yard, giving the ball back to the Titans. The Titans answered immediately when QB Ryan Tannehill threw a 45-yard touchdown pass on the very first play of the drive. The Ravens first two offensive drives proved to be how most of the rest of the game would go for Baltimore’s offense. Baltimore ended the night committing three total turnovers and unable to convert any fourth-down conversions going 0-4. Titans running back Derrick Henry dominated the second half; On the Titans very first drive of the second half, Henry ran for 66-yards on one play before he ended the drive by lining up at the QB position and throwing a 3-yard touchdown pass. It...
by Grant Ledgister | Jan 14, 2020 | News Slider, Sports
Lipscomb (4-13, 1-3) was unable to even its conference record, blowing an eight-point lead to Kennesaw State (7-7, 1-2) in the loss on Monday night. Both teams’ defenses played strong in the early minutes of the game, forcing turnovers and bad shots, to keep scoring slow. However, Lipscomb’s junior forward Taylor Clark was able to find her way to the basket and establish herself, scoring five of the Lady Bisons’ first seven points. The first half was a sloppy one. Five minutes into the game, the teams had combined for a total of eight turnovers. Lipscomb was able to improve on that front. Kennesaw State was not and finished the quarter with eight total turnovers and the half with 13, including several travelling violations. Despite this difference, much of the half was very close. Kennesaw State was able to keep the Lady Bisons’ leading scorer, freshman guard Jalyn Holcomb, in check. She had only four points in the half. The Bisons were also severely outrebounded throughout much of the first half, by a margin of 20-10 by its end. Lipscomb was finally able to put a scoring run together in the late stages of the second quarter, going on a 14-3 run and leading by as much as eight, the largest lead of the game to that point. Freshman guard Casey Collier and a couple key 3-pointers from sophomore guard Taylor Hammack led the charge for the Lady Bisons. A scoring run by the Owls to start the second half saw Lipscomb’s lead shrink to just two. Lipscomb would get the lead back up to four, and back-to-back threes...
by Grant Ledgister | Jan 12, 2020 | BREAKING NEWS, News Slider, Sports
The Lipscomb Lady Bisons (4-12, 1-2 ASUN) struggled to stick with the faster, more pressuring style of defense of the UNA Lions (12-3, 3-0 ASUN), falling 84-72. Lipscomb was also extremely limited from the free-point line, a spot where it has been dominant from (.799 percentage from the line entering the game). Though they only led for a total of 1:53, the Lady Bisons kept it close for much of the first half. Turnovers plagued both teams early, as both teams gave up possessions leading to easy fast breaks and scores for the other side. Both teams settled in after the early run by UNA, making it a much closer affair, with the Lady Bisons taking their first lead on a 3-point shot from freshman guard Blythe Pearson late in the first quarter. Much of the second quarter was similar to the first, with the Lions staying in front but Lipscomb doing enough to keep it close. That all changed when a combination of poor ball handling and passes leading to turnovers (Lipscomb ended the half with 10 total compared to UNA’s four), only shooting 16.7% from the field in the quarter, and an inability to get to the free-throw line (going 0-2 in the half) where the team has been so dominant saw UNA going on a 17-0 run to end the half ahead 38-22. Although for much of the third quarter the damage caused by the end of the first half did not get worse, a three and a layup from UNA’s senior guard Ivy Wallen had Lipscomb fall behind by 20 points. However, Lipscomb didn’t stop...
by Grant Bricker | Jan 12, 2020 | News Slider, Sports
The Lipscomb Bisons played conference rival North Alabama at Allen Arena on Saturday, looking to continue their win streak after last week’s breakout performance against Kennesaw State. However, things didn’t turn out the way Lipscomb had hoped. The Bisons fell to the Lions 82-69 despite Lipscomb leading by nine in the second half. This gave North Alabama its first road win of the year as they were 0-9 previously before coming into the game. The first half was very competitive as both teams went blow for blow. North Alabama was down 27-34 with two minutes left in the half but would go on a 5-0 run capped off by a dunk to end the first half down only two points. Both teams were anxious to get any sort of momentum going in the second half. However, neither team would budge. After a back and forth start to the second half, Lipscomb started to gain a little momentum as they started make some free throws to jump out to a nine-point lead making it 55-46 midway through the second half. Then it was North Alabama’s turn to gain ground, after hitting a three just as the shot clock expired with a little over 10 minutes to go in the game. Lipscomb Coach Lennie Acuff saw this as a key turning point for North Alabama. “We’re up nine with ten minutes, it looked there was gonna [sic] be a shot clock violation, and they make a three as the shot clock goes off, it just opened up the flood gates.” Acuff said. North Alabama would then go on a 33-11 run...
by Tyler Harvey | Jan 11, 2020 | News Slider, Sports
The Titans 2019-2020 campaign has been a successful one up to this point, but this has not been without unexpected changes with its starters on the field. Lipscomb Students and Titans fans Juan Oliva and Caleb Williams gave their opinion on the team’s performance thus far, the changes made by the team and the Titans chances of winning. The biggest change the Titans made happened in week six of the season when the Titans went on the road to play the Denver Broncos. Titans coach Mike Vrabel decided to pull starting quarterback Marcus Mariota from the game to start the second half after losing 6-0 up to that point. QB Ryan Tannehill replaced Mariota, and while he didn’t lead the Titans to a come from behind win against the Broncos; Tannehill played well enough that the Titans coaches decided to name him the new starting quarterback for the next game. “I really did think they would play Mariota the whole season because the organization had banked on him so much. Up to that point the organization had seen him as their franchise quarterback,” Oliva said. “While I did think benching him (Mariota) and mixing things up was a good idea, I did think it kind of blew our chance at a postseason,” Williams said. The Titans had 2-4 record at the time of the switch and had lost their last two games. However, the Titans quarterback change sparked a turning point in the season, the team went on to win a wildcard spot for the NFL playoffs this year. Since naming Tannehill, the starter, the Titans have won eight of...
