Friday, November 18, 2011

Bisons on the Air

Streaming Audio: LipscombSports.com (Steve Selby, play-by-play)

The Game

The Lipscomb Bisons play their second of four games as part of the Cancun Challenge Saturday at Illinois State. The game is set to tip at 4 p.m.

Coach Scott Sanderson’s Bisons need to find their shooting stroke in Redbird Arena after shooting a chilly 31.7 percent at Illinois Thursday evening in a 79-64 loss.

Junior Jacob Arnett and sophomore Rober Boyd set themselves apart against Illinois hitting 11-of-18 shots while the rest of the Bisons were 8-of-42 (19.0 percent).  Arnett had a career-high 17 points making a career-best four 3-pointers.  Boyd finished with 16 points also hitting four treys.

Illinois State defeated SIU Edwardsville 68-38 Thursday evening.  Lipscomb faces SIU Edwardsville in the third game of the Cancun Challenge, and first game actually in Cancun, on Tuesday.

This is the first meeting between the schools.  The Bisons are 1-1 against Missouri Valley Schools since moving the Division I.  Lipscomb played Evansville twice in the 2006-07 season with each school winning on its home court.
    
Quick Hits

• Arnett has recorded career-highs in the last two games and has connected on seven threes in the two games.  Sunday he had 13 points against Gardner-Webb.
• Lipscomb is 9-27 over the past seven seasons in non-conference road games.
• After committing 47 turnovers in the first two games, the young Bisons committed 18 turnovers Thursday against Illinois.  The total was three less than the fighting Illini.
• The A-Sun coaches selected Jordan Burgason to the preseason All-Atlantic Sun Team.
• Burgason has not played in the first three games for a violation of team rules
• After Saturday’s game the Bisons will bus to Chicago and fly south to Cancun Sunday morning.  Lipscomb returns to Nashville Thursday afternoon.
• Allen Arena’s court will be named after long-time coach Don Meyer in a ceremony on Dec. 3.  Meyer is the all-time winningest men’s collegiate basketball coach with a record of 923-324 in 38 years as a head coach.
• Last season, Burgason sank an average of 2.8 three-pointers per contest, which led the A-Sun. His 84 total three-point field goals ranked second only to North Florida's Parker Smith (90). His .418 three-point percentage was fifth-best in the league.
• The Bisons have posted a winning record in A-Sun play in seven-straight seasons, which dates back to the 2004-05 season. Over that time, Lipscomb has only once failed to reach double-digit conference wins (2007-08) when they posted a 9-7 league mark.
• Lipscomb must replace several key players from last season's squad with the departure of Adnan Hodzic, Josh Slater, Brandon Brown and Brandon Barnes. The quartet accounted for 63.1 percent of the team's points last season and 58.2 percent of the rebounding.
• Head Coach Scott Sanderson is the second-longest tenured coach in the A-Sun as he enters his 13th season as Bisons Head Coach.  He’s two wins shy of 200 at Lipscomb.
• Burgason hit seven three pointers in three contest last year becoming the first A-Sun player to perform the feat since Troy’s Bobby Dixon in the 2004-05 season.