tourney | The Byrd Cage

Posts Tagged ‘tourney’

A Sun, asun, Basketball, Battle of the Boulevard, Belmont, Burgason, Byrd Cage, Lipscomb, players, suspension, tourney

Breaking: Lipscomb “Suspends Permanently” More Players

In Game Posts on March 1, 2012 at 8:32 am

According to Lumination Online, the Lipscomb University Athletic Department announced on Wednesday that Bisons basketball players Damarius Smith and Marvin Williams were “suspended from the team permanently”.

This, of course, comes after the recent dismissal of the best 3-point shooter in the nation, Jordan Burgason. The details have not been released as to why Burgason was expelled, or even as to why both Smith and Williams were suspended permanently. Lumination Online also mentions Head Coach Scott Sanderson’s comment about Williams last suspension in the Belmont game, “It was just a discipline issue. We handled it and are moving forward.”

It must be worrisome enough to fret over grammatical issues for the Bisons, and now with a major discipline issue- Lipscomb’s basketball program looks to be in the pits.

“But it’s only 3 players! You are taking this too far,” some may be thinking. But the fact is, I haven’t taken it far enough.

Lumination Online goes as far in the article above to mention the total of Lipscomb Bisons who left or have been suspended this year alone, “Milos Kleut, Zach Brown, Brett Stall, Stephen Hurt, Robert Boyd, Jordan Burgason, Damarius Smith and Marvin Williams.”

With a bench last night of four players, the Lipscomb Bisons still showed an impressive stand against a Mercer home crowd, taking the game to the final minutes. But the story here is not resilience, it isn’t about stepping up, and it definitely isn’t about rose-colored glasses.

It is about a problem.

As Belmont University joins the Ohio Valley Conference next year and leaves their conference rival behind, Lipscomb will do well to put away the measuring stick. This season has proved for once and for all that the difference in the schools measurement is a ruler and a yardstick. The days of Don Meyer are long gone Bisons, and the Scott Sanderson “barely above .500 with one regular season A-Sun championship and no NCAA tournament berths” are, simply put, not cutting it. The shambles of a department led by a coach who has a barely above winning record and has clearly shown he cannot control his men should be enough for Bisons fans. How much worse can it get? It simply cannot get worse.

The objective fact in all this mess? Lipscomb University men’s basketball showed this season, once and for all, that Belmont’s move to another conference might just be the best thing for that other little school down the Boulevard with a basketball team.

-Brett McReynolds

▶ View 3 Comments

asun, Atlantic Sun, Belmont, bruins, byrd, byrdcage, cage, clark, dolphins, ian, jacksonville, johnson, NCAA, rick, Tournament, tourney

Belmont Gets To Semi-Finals; 76-62 Win Over Jacksonville

In Game Posts on February 29, 2012 at 4:21 pm

As Ian Clark iced his ankle at the end of the bench, Adam Barnes took the floor with the rest of the usual starters; Johnson, Hedgepeth, Hanlen, and Jenkins.

With Kerron’s back spasms worrying Bruin fans and Jenkins’ sitting out last game as well, a very unsettling feeling made its way over me before the game started.

But it seemed to be business as usual for the Bruins. Up by 15 at one point, the lead felt like it would get away from Jacksonville, but the Dolphins kept battling the Ian Clark-less Bruins. Shooting 35% from the 3, the Bruins delivered a nail-biting game in the last 10 minutes. Cutting the lead to just 7 with five minutes left, the Dolphins proved they would not go away, but Kerron’s clutch three-point basket at 4:21 started to squelch the momentum. Johnson ultimately showered 19 points against the tricky Jacksonville defense as Belmont got its win, 76-62.

But the game just looked sloppy overall to the avid Bruin fan. The score simply did not equal the true feel of the game. While only 10 turnovers were committed by Belmont, the sloppiness came in the stat-line of 23-58 from the field. Thankfully, our consistency came from the foul line. The Bruins got there 31 times and made 24. Scott Saunders scored 8 of his 18 points from that line and we doubled their offensive rebounds.

After the game, Associate Head Coach Brian Ayers spoke with Kevin Ingram from the Bruin Sports Network, “We did enough to win. The bad turnovers and decision making is something we have to correct if we want to win on Saturday.” He also spoke about the multiple defenses Johnson faced throughout the game. ”You have got to give Jacksonville a lot of credit. They mixed their defenses up. Triangle 2, zone, man- but with a guy like Kerron who can beat his man, it was good to get him back in there. But it was tough without Ian. “

Kerron also talked about his clutch three-pointer at the end of the game. ”Alot of my shots had been going in and out, but teamates kept saying keep trying… and I stepped up and made a shot when I had to.” He also spoke about Ian Clark’s absence. ”Everybody knew we had to step up our game… it was a big loss for us. We are hoping he gets better.”

Belmont will play University of North Florida or East Tennessee State University on Friday. Tip-off will be at 6 ET.

▶ View 2 Comments