NASHVILLE – The Lipscomb men’s basketball team beat the Central Arkansas Bears at a score of 81-66 on senior day.
The first half exhibited a close affair between two equal teams in the conference standings. Earlier in the year, the Bears came out on top in a competitive 93-88 win in Conway, Arkansas.
Freshman guard Trae Benham shot lights-out in the first half to tally 16 points. Benham shot 6-9 from the field and contributed four of Lipscomb’s five made three-pointers in the half.
Greg Jones, a Frisco, Texas-born guard and one of two seniors honored on Senior Day, had an efficient start to the half, going 2-3 from the field. Jones threw an assist across the court to lead to Benham’s last three of the half to take a 29-27 lead.
After a quick Bears run, freshman forward Jacob Ognacevic finished on a second-chance layup after a block from Parker Hazen, a graduate forward from Columbia City, Indiana. With that basket, the Bisons cut the UCA’s lead to two points by half.
Beginning in the second half, the Bisons started to pull away. The home side shot 63% from the field and outscored the Bears 50-33 in the half.
Junior center Ahsan Asadullah, a two-time All-ASUN First Team player, heated up in the second half as the Bears proved unable to stop him in the paint. Asadullah would also accumulate a game-high 10 rebounds and six assists for the Bisons.
Despite Eddy Kayouloud’s 22 points, the Central Arkansas forward was not enough against the Bisons’ quicker play.
“We came out and played a complete game in the second half… Ahsan gave us a better presence inside which opened up things on the outside for us,” assistant coach Roger Idstrom said. “KJ [Johnson] had one of his better games; he really was good getting to the basket and opening some things for us with that as well,” Idstrom said.
Johnson, a sophomore guard from Lewisburg, Tennessee, brought energy coming off the bench and was efficient driving to the bucket.
Benham also connected to Hazen on two fast-break dunks, one of which stretched the score to a comfortable 73-57 lead that Lipscomb carried into a controlling final score.
Four players scored in double figures for the Bisons, including a career-high 26 from Benham. The Concord, North Carolina-born true freshman beat his previous career mark of 22 points at North Alabama a week prior.
Asadullah followed on the afternoon with 15 points, while Jones and Johnson tallied 10 points each.
With the win, the Bisons record improves to 13-18 (6-10 ASUN) and the Bears drop to 10-19 (7-9 ASUN). The Bisons earn a first round game at home by securing the four seed in the ASUN West Division.
Lipscomb is set to play North Florida, the fifth seed in the ASUN East, 7 p.m. Tuesday at Allen Arena. That match will be broadcast live on The Bison, Lipscomb’s on-campus radio station.
“[North Florida is] an explosive team [and] a great shooting team,” Idstrom said. “They’ve got length to them, so there’s a lot we have to prepare for in the next couple of days.”
With a win against the Ospreys Tuesday, the Bisons would advance to the ASUN Quarterfinal Thursday at Liberty in Lynchburg, Virginia.