JACKSONVILLE – For the third year in a row, the Lipscomb men's basketball team is headed to the ASUN Championship Final after the Bisons went into UNF Arena and knocked off No. 2 North Florida 73-71 Thursday night in Jacksonville.

"All I know is, it's a great day to be a Bison," head coach Lennie Acuff said. 

The Bisons (16-15) will go to Lynchburg, Virginia on Sunday where they will have a rematch of last year’s championship game with top-seeded Liberty (29-4) at 2 p.m. (CT) on ESPN.

Two nights after Ahsan Asadullah scored a career high 40 points with 14 rebounds, the All-ASUN first team selection was on top of his game with 27 points with a career-high 19 rebounds, but when the dust settled the real hero of the night was hometown boy Andrew Fleming.

The senior guard received a tipped pass from Asadullah and slashed through the lane, lofting a floater up over the defense and through the net with 3.1 seconds on the clock for the game winner. Instead of celebrating, Fleming got back on defense and denied UNF from getting a shot off as the horn sounded and the visiting Bisons stormed the court in celebration.

“I was not going to let this be my last college game,” Fleming said.

Fleming came up big every time Lipscomb needed a bucket, finishing with a career high 26 points on 12-of-16 shooting from the floor.

Six Bisons scored in the contest including seven points from Michael Buckland along with five-point showings from Greg Jones and KJ Johnson.

Jones came up with one of the biggest makes of the night with the Bisons trailing by three with just over a minute to play and UNF (21-12) seemingly taking control. The sophomore guard, who had not made a field goal in the game, buried a heavily contested three-pointer from the left corner to bring the score back even at 69-69.

Following an Osprey jumper from Carter Hendricksen on the next possession, Asadullah converted on the other end with 41 seconds to play. UNF missed a pair of shots in the final 25 seconds before Asadullah pulled down his final rebound to set the stage for the game-winner.

Asadullah was almost single handidly responsible helping Lipscomb take a 42-33 lead into halftime as the big man scored 20 points and grabbed eight boards in the opening 20 minutes. Fleming led the Bisons offense in the second stanza with 15 points on 7-of-9 field goals. 

HERD NOTES

• The Bisons will be playing in their fourth ASUN title game in program history. They took home their first championship two seasons ago season with a record-setting 108-96 win over top-seeded FGCU on their home court.
• Lipscomb won the rebounding battle 38-30. It’s the seventh time in eight games they’ve controlled the boards. They also dished 13 assists to nine turnovers.
• Asadullah (27) and Fleming (26) combined for 53 points to outscore all five North Florida starters.
• Asadullah recorded his 13^th game of at least 20 points this season and his 16^th game of 10 or more boards.
• Fleming picked up his third game of the year with 20+ points.
• Lipscomb shot 50 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from deep while outrebounding UNF 38-30 in the game.
• Lipscomb is now the fifth different program to reach the ASUN Championship Final in three-straight seasons.
• Asadullah's 19 boards set a new Lipscomb program record for individual rebounds in an ASUN Championship game.
• North Florida was 2-0 all-time vs. Lipscomb in the ASUN Championship with both previous wins coming in the semifinals (2015 & 2017).
• The Ospreys shot 29 percent (9-31) from behind the arc. On the season, they were 38.2 percent from three-point range.
• The loss was just the second of the season for the Ospreys inside UNF Arena this season (13-2).

UP NEXT

Lipscomb will visit No. 1 Liberty in the ASUN Final on Sunday at 2 p.m. CT in a game televised on ESPN. The winner will earn the league’s automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.