A big storyline coming into tonight’s 133rd annual Battle of the Boulevard was the dawn of Casey Alexander’s era of Lipscomb men’s basketball in a season-opening game that pitted him against his old friend and new on-court competitor Rick Byrd.
After the game, though, it’s pretty apparent that everyone will now be talking about how a group of Bisons under new leadership nearly toppled an Ohio Valley giant.
Unlike last December’s demolishing 100-66 loss at the Curb Event Center, and last November’s 89-60 walloping at home, the Lipscomb men’s basketball team went blow for blow with the rival-down-the-road Belmont Bruins for forty minutes Friday night in Allen Arena, nearly upsetting Belmont in a close contest.
In one of those games where it truly depended on who was holding the basketball last, a crowd of close to 5000 watched the Bruins emerge from the brawl victorious, winning 87-83 and notching a second consecutive ‘Battle’ win at Allen.
From the get-go, Lipscomb and Belmont didn’t budge on letting either team take a wide margin lead. The Bruins were the first to get close, going up 20-10 at 11:06 in the first half with a potentially tone-setting dunk from redshirt senior Blake Jenkins. But, the Bisons remained persistent, chipping away at Belmont’s lead. At the half, Belmont led 35-32.
In the second half, redshirt freshman J.C. Hampton and redshirt junior Carter Sanderson began to get open from the arc, knocking down key three-pointers that helped the Bisons go up by eight with 13:02 left in the game. However, the Bruins continued to capitalize on Lipscomb fouls from the line, never allowing the Bisons to fully break away with the lead.
Around the eight-minute-to-go mark, the game returned to a tense-as-can-be basket-for-basket contest, with the Bruins gaining the last lead change of the night off of a J.J. Mann free throw with 1:10 remaining. The last five points of the night came from the Belmont line, and the Bruins walked away from Allen with the 133rd ‘Battle’ title in hand.
Sanderson led the Bisons in scoring with 21 points, with Hampton not too far behind with 20.
Senior Khion Sankey posted a double-double for the night with 11 points and 11 rebounds. He also had a team-leading five assists. Junior Malcolm Smith had 14 points and eight rebounds.
Sankey commended the effort of his teammates after the game, mentioning the Bisons’ toughness throughout the match.
Coach Casey Alexander pushes the Lipscomb Bisons to play hard during the Battle of the Boulevard game versus Belmont.
“I felt like we played extra hard today,” Sankey said. “I feel like when you give up 52 free throws, and you lose the game by six, that’s all toughness right there.”
Sanderson credited late, on-court errors and stat differentials as factors that contributed to the defeat.
“We had 14 more turnovers than they had. They shot 24 more free throws than we did,” Sanderson said. “And, when you turn the ball over, and you can’t get to the line and make free throws, that hurts your team a lot, and it showed in a very close game.”
A major problem for the Bisons was the amount of fouls committed throughout the game. The Bruins went 33-52 from the free throw line, and Sankey said he hopes the team will remove those fouls from future game play.
“We’ve got to stop fouling. We’ve got to play defense with our feet, not our hands,” Sankey said.
Both Sankey and Sanderson held their heads up high when looking ahead to Monday night’s 6 p.m. game against visiting Oakland City University. The Bisons will have two days of practice before playing the Mighty Oaks.
“I feel like we’re going to bounce back tomorrow during practice,” Sankey said.
Sanderson echoed some of Coach Alexander’s thoughts from the loss, also saying that the team is greatly anticipating the season ahead.
“Like coach said in the locker room, he can’t wait to practice tomorrow because he knows what the team’s made of, and he knows the guys in gold tonight have a lot of heart,” Sanderson said. “So, our season ahead is going to be great.”
Photo credit: Whitney Jarreld
Video by Sydney Poe and Aaron Schmelzer
Check out our liveblog of the event below.