The Lipscomb Bisons men's basketball team is the men's basketball team that represents

Lipscomb University Lipscomb University is a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It is affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The campus is located in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, between Belmont Boulevard to the west and Granny White Pike o ...

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, United States. The school's team currently competes in the

ASUN Conference The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Divisio ...

. The Bisons made their first ever trip to the NCAA tournament in school history in 2018, when they defeated Florida Gulf Coast University in the ASUN Conference tournament final. In 2019, Lipscomb made history by becoming the first team in ASUN history to make it to the NIT Finals.

History

Lipscomb has a 311–280 all-time record in NCAA basketball and a 186–141 record in ASUN games. Lipscomb won their first

ASUN men's basketball tournament The ASUN Conference men's basketball tournament (formerly known as the Trans America Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament between 1979 and 2001) is the conference championship tournament in basketball for the ASUN Conference, formerly ...

title in 2018, despite winning the regular-season conference title twice before, in 2006 and 2010. The Bisons made the NCAA tournament for the first time in 2018. They have competed in the NIT twice, in 2006 and 2019. Lipscomb is also home to the top two all-time leading college basketball scorers, John Pierce and Philip Hutcheson. Lipscomb also won the NAIA National championship in 1986.

Battle of the Boulevard

Lipscomb maintains a rivalry with nearby

Belmont University Belmont University is a private Christian university in Nashville, Tennessee. Descended from Belmont Women's College, founded in 1890 by schoolteachers Ida Hood and Susan Heron, the institution was incorporated in 1951 as Belmont College. It be ...

, and the two men's basketball teams compete annually in a game known as the

Battle of the Boulevard The Battle of the Boulevard, also referred to as the Belmont–Lipscomb basketball rivalry is a college basketball rivalry between the Belmont University Bruins and the Lipscomb University Bisons. Its nickname was established because of both sc ...

. The game is named for Belmont Boulevard, which both schools are located on; the separating the schools makes them among the closest rivals in NCAA Division I men's basketball. The rivalry began in 1953, when both schools played in the NAIA, and continued into the NCAA when both schools transitioned to Division I in the 1990s. Lipscomb leads the all-time series 73–61, while Belmont leads 14–9 in NCAA play. One unique feature of the rivalry is that the teams play two games each season on a home-and-away basis, even though they have not been in the same conference since Belmont left the Atlantic Sun for the

Ohio Valley Conference The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Southeastern United States, Southeastern United States. It participates in NCAA Divisi ...

in 2012. The only other non-conference rivalry in Division I that is played twice each season is New Mexico–New Mexico State.

Postseason

NCAA tournament results

The Bisons have appeared in one NCAA tournament.

NIT results

The Bisons have appeared in two

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitational Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Played at regional sites and traditionally at Madison Square Garden (Final Four) in New York City ...

(NIT). Their record is 4–2. They were the runner up in 2019.

NAIA tournament results

The Bison have appeared in the NAIA Tournament 14 times. Their combined record is 21–13. They were NAIA National Champions in 1986.

Notable alumni

* Gary Colson, college basketball coach *

Adnan Hodžić Adnan Hodžić (born 6 December 1988) is a Bosnian-American professional basketball player. A 6'8" power forward, Hodžić played college basketball for Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. Hodžić is notable both for winning the Atlantic ...

, professional basketball player *

Garrison Mathews Garrison Mathews (born October 24, 1996) is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed “Gary Bird”, he played college basketball for the Lipscomb Bisons men's baske ...

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

player * John Pierce,

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

all-time/all-division scoring leader with 4,230 points *

Marvin Williams Marvin Gaye Williams Jr. (born June 19, 1986) is an American former professional basketball player. He played one season of college basketball for North Carolina before being drafted second overall by the Atlanta Hawks in the 2005 NBA draft. H ...

, professional basketball player

References

External links

* {{Tennessee-basketball-team-stub