NASHVILLE – The Lipscomb men’s basketball team lost a tight contest against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks Wednesday night at Allen Arena 78-67.
After losing by five points at Jacksonville State in January, it was another close contest in the second game of the season series with the same result.
Second-year freshman Will Pruitt and graduate transfer Parker Hazen led the Bisons with 17 points and 5 rebounds apiece. Pruitt, a guard from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, shot 4-10 from the field and made 6-7 free throws.
Hailing from Columbia City, Indiana, Hazen went 6-12 from the floor and made 3-6 from behind the arc.
Freshman shooting guard Tommy Murr scored 14 points for Lipscomb, his second straight game with double digits in scoring.
“It’s a lot of fun because we play the game the right way,” the Athens, Alabama-born guard said. “We have a lot of really good players, and sometimes that shows, sometimes it doesn’t.”
The scoreboard may not have shown Lipscomb’s quality, but the Bisons battled for 40 well-fought minutes against a highly talented JSU team. Despite 64% 3-point shooting in the first half, Lipscomb used key runs down the stretch of the first half to keep things level at 41-41 at the midway point.
Led by junior guard Jalen Finch’s 14 points on perfect 4-4 three-point shooting, JSU jumped out to leads of eight points at the 15:15 mark and seven with under eight minutes to go in the half.
Lipscomb responded in kind to both runs, eventually earning their first lead of the game with 3:27 on the clock. Pruitt knocked down a left-wing three as he was fouled and knocked in the resulting free throw for a four-point play to give Lipscomb a 30-29 advantage.
Finch knocked in a layup 11 seconds later to give JSU the lead back, but Lipscomb was able to end the half on a 6-0 run to deadlock the score at 41 each.
The Bisons started the second half the same way they ended the first, using eight points in five minutes from Hazen to take a six-point lead with 14:49 to play.
The Gamecocks quickly ate away at the lead, tying the game at 58 through a Demaree King layup. King scored all 11 of his points in the last 11 minutes of the contest.
Finch put away another three-balls with seven and a half minutes to go to restore a one-point lead for the visitors from Jacksonville, Alabama. Coming into the game with just 15 made threes, Finch used 5-6 three-point shooting to finish with 21 points, which led the game.
Junior center Ahsan Asadullah went 1-2 at the free throw line with 5:49 left, only tying the game at 63-63 before JSU took the lead for good with a King pullback jumper. Asadullah was just 2-6 at the free throw line but led the Bisons with 8 rebounds along with 13 points.
The Gamecocks scored 10 straight after the tie to go ahead 73-63, and Lipscomb could not make up the difference with under two minutes to play.
The Bisons drop to 11-17 on the year, while Jacksonville State keeps their lead in the West Division with a 10-3 conference record and a 17-9 mark overall. Lipscomb now sits in fifth in the division, which would see them travel for an away game in the opening round of the ASUN Tournament next month.
Lipscomb is next in action 3:30 p.m. Saturday against North Alabama at Flowers Hall in Florence, Alabama. That match will be broadcast live on The Bison, Lispcomb’s on-campus radio station.