by Erika Plunkett | Nov 5, 2020 | News Slider, Sports
Even though positive COVID-19 numbers on Lipscomb’s campus have risen in recent weeks, Lipscomb athletic director Philip Hutcheson remains positive about how Lipscomb athletics has managed the pandemic this fall. “I think the semester has gone really well considering where we are at,” said Hutcheson. “The NCAA made some decisions athletically in terms of how we were going to have to deal with this.” While much of Lipscomb athletics’ success with the COVID pandemic is due to the vigilance of the staff, coaches, and players, some pressing concerns were alleviated by some of the NCAA’s decisions. “We weren’t sure starting out if we were going to have fall sports or not, and then they [the NCAA] decided not to have fall sports,” said Hutcheson. “That took care of a lot of the questions we had about logistics and how to handle events and crowds and that sort of thing.” Fall sports may have been canceled, but practices and preparations for the spring continue, and so adjustments have had to be made to reduce the spread of the virus. “We’re still trying to deal with distancing, cleaning things a lot more often, or using different routing for how we come in and out of places,” said Hutcheson. “One of the things that’s different for athletes compared to the rest of the student body is we do a lot of testing of our athletes. Depending on the sport they play, they’re classified as either a high contact sport, medium contact, low contact. So basketball, for instance, is a high contact sport. They test more often. ” With these protocols, athletics has...
by Grant Ledgister | May 22, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
Due to the academic successes of its athletes, all of Lipscomb’s sports programs have escaped classroom-related penalties from the NCAA for the 12th straight year. The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is a system put in place by the NCAA to help measure whether Division I schools are ensuring their student-athletes are doing well academically. First enforced in 2003, APR is a statistic that tracks the “eligibility” and “retention” of athletic programs and their athletes nationwide. APR is calculated by giving one point per student-athlete in a given athletic program that is receiving financial aid for athletics, and another point if those students remain above the mandated academic thresholds. These points are added up, then divided by points possible, and finally multiplied by 1,000 to get the program’s total APR score. Programs with low APR scores will be penalized, with the first penalty being a limitation on practice time (16 hours over five days instead of 20 over 6). The NCAA also averages out the APR scores from the past four years to see if the program meets the minimum 930 standards it has set, and if the program does not, it is in danger of receiving a ban from participation in championship games. “It correlates an athlete’s ability to do the coursework,” said Lipscomb Athletic Director Philip Hutcheson. “A system that has some standards as opposed to not having any is probably the better approach,” In a year that saw 12 programs across 20 schools receive penalties, all of Lipscomb’s programs received scores high enough to avoid the one of their own. Men’s and women’s golf received the highest...
by Erika Plunkett | May 13, 2019 | Galleries, Sports
Surrounded by family, friends, and Bison faithful in the Allen Arena Hall of Fame room, the Lipscomb softball team learned their next stop is Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as pairings were announced during the NCAA Softball Tournament Selection Show. Lipscomb drew the Tuscaloosa regional, hosted by the SEC regular-season champion and overall eight-seed, the Alabama Crimson Tide. The Lady Bisons will open the regional against the Arizona State Sun Devils. Also, included in the Tuscaloosa regional are the Alabama State Hornets. “This is a hard regional,” coach Kristin Ryman said. “This [Arizona State] is a tough team. But I don’t care. We are too.” After winning 22 of their last 24 games, Lipscomb won the ASUN championship and earned an automatic berth into the NCAA softball tournament. The first round of the tournament, which is set to begin May 17-19, is divided into 16 regional campus sites with four teams at each location. The four teams will play a double elimination tournament to determine who advances to the super-regional round the following weekend. Philip Hutcheson, Lipscomb’s athletic director, praised this team and their coaches for an incredibly exciting season, mentioning how fun it has been to watch them this year. ASUN Coach of the Year Ryman talked about how “connected” her team has been all season, attributing their success to this chemistry. The first game is set to be played at 3 p.m. Friday and can be streamed via ESPN+....
by Russell Vannozzi | Apr 25, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
Lennie Acuff once wanted to play basketball for Lipscomb, but he admitted that he “wasn’t good enough” for Don Meyer’s legendary NAIA teams. Instead, the longtime Alabama-Huntsville skipper now gets his chance to coach the Bisons. Lipscomb officially introduced Acuff as its next head coach Wednesday, beginning a new era for a program that is coming off one of its most successful seasons – a year that ended one victory short of an NIT championship. But Acuff was familiar with the Bisons long before they joined the NCAA Division I ranks. He attended Lipscomb basketball summer camps as a kid, and he continued to learn from Meyer as an adult, even visiting his house on at least one occasion. “I think it’s important that everybody knows that I understand what Lipscomb basketball is about,” he said. “[Two] of the guys on my high school team played on the [1986] national championship team – Anthony Jones and Bob Ford. “I would’ve loved to have been a Bison. [Coach Meyer] was the best teacher the game has ever had. I cannot tell you how much he taught me, how much I learned from him and the level of respect I have for what he built here.” Acuff seems like a natural fit for the Bisons. He’s down to earth, family-oriented and speaks with a Southern drawl. He’s also bald, just like Meyer and Casey Alexander – arguably the two best coaches in Lipscomb’s history. But, perhaps most importantly, Acuff has the basketball resume to keep the Lipscomb program on an upward trajectory. His track record at UAH, which includes 437 wins,...
by Russell Vannozzi | Apr 10, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
Wednesday morning brought news that Lipscomb coach Casey Alexander is heading to Belmont to take the reins at his alma mater. Lipscomb is now tasked with a national coaching search to replace him. Associate Head Coach Roger Idstrom will serve as the interim in the meantime. Two of the top names being tossed around include Brian Ayers, a former Lipscomb player and current Belmont assistant, and Drew Maddux, an ex-Vanderbilt star and current head coach at CPA. Athletic director Philip Hutcheson could look to others with Lipscomb connections or someone with college head coaching experience. Here are Lumination’s five potential candidates to replace Alexander (listed alphabetically): Lennie Acuff, University of Alabama-Huntsville head coach Acuff’s resume speaks for itself, as he has turned UAH into a national power in the D-II ranks. He has a 437-214 record with the Chargers and a 554-325 overall record in 29 seasons as a head coach. His track record of success might interest Lipscomb. According to public records, Acuff earned about $180,000 at UAH for the 2017-18 school year. A D-I opportunity in Nashville would give him a salary bump and a chance to stay close to his hometown of Huntsville. Brian Ayers, Belmont associate head coach As a Lipscomb alum with plenty of college coaching experience, Ayers figures to a natural choice. Stadium basketball analyst Jeff Goodman tweeted that Ayers could be high on Lipscomb’s list Wednesday morning. Ayers graduated from Lipscomb in 1993 and was an assistant at Lipscomb Academy for the 1994-95 season. He was later on the staffs at Austin Peay and Vanderbilt before joining the Bruins as an assistant in 1998....
