The Lipscomb men’s basketball team didn’t take long to clinch their first win of the 2018-2019 season.
The Bisons handily defeated Sewanee by a score of 97-53 at Allen Arena Tuesday night.
“Overall I’m definitely pleased,” Lipscomb coach Casey Alexander said. “A nice margin [of victory] and everyone got to play pretty significant minutes. I felt like the mentality we had for most of the game was pretty good.”
It appeared the Bisons needed to knock off some rust in the first few minutes of the game as they struggled to find their rhythm.
“From game to game there are going to be stretches where you are not performing quite as smoothly as you would like, and it just happened to be the beginning of this game,” Alexander said.
“We never really got in-sync offensively where we were shooting it well and scoring the ball at a high clip.”
Redshirt freshman Ahsan Asadullah made his Lipscomb debut after suffering an ACL injury last year. He finished with 26 points and nine rebounds.
“I don’t know if I was expecting 26 and 9,” Alexander said. “He played with a lot of poise. He never really rushed things, never really forced things… just kind of did his job, executed and delivered.”
Asadullah said he was thrilled to be back on the court for his first game action since he graduated high school in 2017.
“It’s been a long time… and I think over the whole course of the period since I’ve been hurt, and since the offseason workouts, and since the end of last season, we have really worked hard,” Asadullah said. “I think it’s really showing and we gel so well as a team, especially with the new guys coming in. I think we have a lot of chemistry and [that] helps a lot.”
Senior guard Garrison Mathews had 16 points, while freshman Alex Jones made his debut and chipped in nine points. Michael Buckland, Kenny Cooper and Nathan Moran each had six points apiece.
The Bisons now turn their attention to Tennessee State, which will pay a visit to Allen Arena on Saturday at 3 p.m.
“They are very talented,” Alexander said. “We won’t have any film to go on, so that’s a little unnerving. But they will be talented and I expect it to be a good game.”