Conference Player of the Year Dallas Moore and the North Florida Ospreys’ array of shooters proved too much to handle for the Lipscomb men’s basketball team on Thursday night, felling the Bisons 91-85 in the ASUN semifinal at Allen Arena.
The Ospreys were scorching-hot from deep all night, making 12-of-14 threes in the first half and 16-of-24 total. Senior Aaron Bodager and ASUN All-Freshman Team guard Garrett Sams drilled nine-of-11 from behind the line. Moore, Osborn Blount and Aaron Horne each added a pair of triples for North Florida, which led 45-32 at the half.
“That was a tough mental hurdle for us,” Lipscomb head coach Casey Alexander said. “They played with great confidence; they got great shots; they buried shots. The hole that we got in was really tough to get out of.”
Lipscomb did not lead at any point in the game.
Though the Bisons keyed in on Moore — he scored 39 points at Allen Arena on Feb. 16 — the back-to-back ASUN Conference Player of the Year was able to find his teammates open behind the three-point line all night. North Florida head coach Matthew Driscoll lauded his star point guard’s ability to adapt to different defensive strategies.
“He became more aggressive; he started going downhill more; he started going to the lane more to get into his floater game and get kick-outs,” Driscoll said. “Believe it or not, sometimes you have to tell these guys how special they really are.”
Six of Moore’s seven assists led to made three-pointers.
The teams traded baskets in the second half, with Lipscomb attempting to mount scoring runs on the backs of star sophomore Garrison Mathews and center Rob Marberry. The pair combined for 30 points in the second period.
But North Florida continued to find answers in the form of timely baskets from many contributors, keeping the game at a double-digit margin. Every Osprey that entered the game scored at least six points, and five finished in double figures.
Chris Davenport’s dunk with 2:06 to play pushed the Osprey lead to 21, the largest margin of the game. Though the contest seemed over, the Bisons mounted a furious comeback, scoring 11 unanswered points in 67 seconds and ending the game on an 18-3 run, boosted by Mathews’ buzzer-beater from the left wing.
But it was too little, too late for the Bisons, who were hoping to advance to the conference finals for the second time since joining the ASUN.
Senior and 1,500-point scorer Josh Williams scored the final basket of his career, a tip-in of a missed Mathews three-pointer, during that run.
Mathews reached 1,000 career points on a free throw with 10:04 left in the game. The ASUN All-Conference guard became the fastest Lipscomb Bison in the Division 1 era to reach the milestone, doing so in only 64 games.
Mathews led all scorers with 29 points. Marberry finished with an efficient double-double, pulling down 10 rebounds and scoring 19 points on eight-of-11 shooting. Williams and freshman Kenny Cooper rounded out the Bisons in double figures with 13 and 11 points, respectively.
The Bisons’ season is over. North Florida advances to the ASUN Championship for a showdown with Florida Gulf Coast University on Sunday.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics