bisons historic season comes to an end in nit final
the lipscomb men’s basketball team carried its season as far as it could go.
logan butts | lipscomb athletics |
garrison matthews and rob marberry were named to the nit all-tournament team.
the bisons fell 81-66 to texas in the nit championship game on thursday night in madison square garden, ending a memorable tournament run and a historic season.
after winning three consecutive road games and an electrifying semifinal in new york city, lipscomb (29-8) ran out of gas in the title game.
texas (21-16) was hot from three-point range all night, draining 13 shots from behind the arc.
senior rob marberry carried the bisons offense early on, notching the team’s first six points. he finished with a team-high 17 points on 7-12 shooting in his final game for lipscomb.
fellow senior garrison mathews struggled to get it going from the field (2-10), but still ended up with 15 points thanks to a stellar 10-10 mark from the free throw line. he also tied for the team lead with eight rebounds.
redshirt-freshman ahsan asadullah was a spark plug off the bison bench, scoring 11 points on 5-7 shooting and grabbing three rebounds.
a 22-5 texas run to tend the half gave the longhorns a 41-27 halftime lead.
the bisons were able to trim the longhorns lead down to seven early in the second half thanks to a 7-0 run capped by a three-pointer from senior nate moran.
however, texas responded with a number of big shots to break the game open late in the game.
junior michael buckland tied mathews for the team lead with eight rebounds and dished out a team-high five assists.
marberry, mathews, moran, matt rose and eli pepper played their final games in the purple and gold after a memorable stint with the bisons.
the senior class finishes with the most wins for a career and in a single season in the program’s division i era. they received ap top-25 votes for the first time ever, knocked off a ranked team for the first time, and made the program’s first trip to the ncaa tournament in 2018.
herd notes:
- texas was paced by 19 from dylan osetkowski. kerwin roach ii (16), jase febres (13), and matt coleman iii (11) also scored in double-figures.
- lipscomb shot 17-20 from the free throw line, but just 22-56 from the field and 5-17 from three-point range.
- texas grabbed just one more rebound than lipscomb (37-36). they handed out 23 assists to lipscomb’s 20.
- both teams produced 27 bench points.
- pepper was handed a technical foul in the first half.
- the bisons are now 0-3 vs texas. they are 1-1 against big 12 teams on the season after knocking off then no. 18 tcu on the road in november.
- the runner up finish is the highest an asun team has ever placed in the nit.
- marberry and mathews were named to the all-tournament team.