Lipscomb’s dream season came to an end on Friday afternoon. The 14th-seeded Bisons had no answer for No. 3 Iowa State’s stifling defense, struggling to generate any consistency in an 82-55 loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
“They’ve got a nice team. I was really impressed,” Lipscomb coach Lennie Acuff said. “They just physically, there’s so much force. When you go into this thing, you know the draw is a big deal, who you end up with. It’s all about match-ups when you get to this.
“We’re fighting, but we just didn’t really have an answer. In order for us to win, we knew we had to shoot it well. We made five 3s in the first 10 minutes. I don’t think we made another one for 20 minutes. That was our hope.”
The tournament appearance marked just the second in program history for the Bisons, who also finished the season with 25 wins — the second-most in program history.
The Bisons are a veteran-laden team and managed to win the ASUN regular-season and conference tournament titles to make it into the NCAA Tournament.
“Nothing that happens today is going to take away from what our team did,” Acuff said. “This is as good a group of young men as I’ve ever been around, and they kept fighting and gave us great memories. God has been so good to us.”
The Bisons held their own early in the first half against Iowa State. Senior guard Joe Anderson drained a 3-pointer to put the Bisons ahead 16-15 with 11:37 left in the half. But after the go-ahead basket, it was all Iowa State.
The Cyclones used a 14-0 run over the next four minutes to take a commanding lead. Sophomore guard Milan Momcilovic, a Wisconsin native, took over for the Cyclones, scoring 12 points during the run.
The Cyclones’ defense overwhelmed the Bisons with their size, athleticism and skill. They cut off driving lanes and tightly contested the permeameter to force Lipscomb to take shots late into the shot clock.
Lipscomb shot 36% from the floor in the first half, including 5 of 14 for 35.7% from 3. Iowa State, at times, couldn’t miss, finishing the half shooting 60%.
The second half was a similar story. The Bisons couldn’t generate any rhythm from beyond the arc and continued to fall behind the Cyclones, whose pressure was too much.
Lipscomb finished the game shooting 37.3% compared to Iowa State’s 58.3%. The Bison entered the game ranked as one of the top 3-point shooting teams in the country, but they went just 8 of 28 for 28.6% from beyond the arc.
Star forward Jacob Ognacevic, a Wisconsin native, paced Lipscomb with 18 points, and Gyasi Powell added 11.
“They turned up fresh and got more physical,” Acuff said. “We had a hard time. Any time in any possession, there’s a defining moment. We couldn’t win it. We couldn’t win the spot on either end. They would knock us off our spot. We had a hard time getting separation. That’s how we play is get inside the lane and kick. They’re just really good defensively.”
