After beating North Alabama in the ASUN Tournament final, Lipscomb has punched its ticket to the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
The fourth automatic bid to the 2025 NCAA Tournament has been awarded, and it belongs to Lipscomb.
The Bisons tied with North Alabama for the Atlantic Sun regular-season title but owned the tiebreaker for the top seed by virtue of their respective records against the No. 3 team (Florida Gulf Coast). As the ASUN Tournament is played at the campus site of the higher-seeded team in each game, Lipscomb had the advantage of playing all of its conference tournament games in Allen Arena, where it went 10-3 in the regular season.
The Bisons used that home-court advantage to beat Central Arkansas, Queens, and North Alabama en route to their first dance ticket since the 2018. The championship win was sweet revenge, given that UNA knocked Lipscomb out of last season’s ASUN Tournament in front of its home crowd — the program’s first home loss in the conference tournament since 2019.
Lipscomb now enters the NCAA Tournament on a hot streak, having won 11 of its last 12 games. But how have they reached this point, and what kind of danger do they pose as a double-digit seed?
More Heat Check CBB:
- Bracketology: Projected field | Bubble Watch
- Tournament Index: Complete March Madness projections
- Full conference tournament TV schedule
The Bisons light it up from 3-point range
Only three teams in college basketball have four players with at least 45 made 3-pointers on 35 percent shooting or better: Auburn, Santa Clara and Lipscomb. Further, the Bisons are the only one to have all four shooters make at least 20 starts. Even more impressive, this group — made up of Jacob Ognacevic, Will Pruitt, Joe Anderson and Gyasi Powell — have started all 34 games together.
They have built tremendous chemistry together, and the spacing has only increased since William & Mary transfer Charlie Williams joined the starting lineup.
That lineup sacrifices some on the defensive end but can score with the best of them. For the season, this five-man unit operates at the equivalent of the 15th-best adjusted offense in the country. The Bisons attempt nearly half of their shots from beyond the arc with those five sharing the floor, and they have hit 43.9 percent of those attempts. Since Williams entered the starting lineup, Lipscomb is making 5.5 more 3-pointers per game than its opponents and owns an 11-1 record in those games.
Lipscomb is undefeated this season when it shoots 39 percent or better from deep, which it has done in an astounding 17 of 32 games against D-I opposition.
Ognacevic is the star to watch. The 6-8 senior has notched at least 20 points in 12 of his last 13 games, averaging 22.6 points over this stretch. A highly efficient scorer from anywhere on the floor, Ognacevic ranked top three in the ASUN in both 2-point and 3-point percentages during league play.
Anderson is no slouch, either. He was arguably Lipscomb’s best player at the ASUN Tournament, scoring 73 points over the three games and going 16-for-27 from three.
Metric of note: Tempo
Lipscomb isn’t a particularly fast or slow team, ranking 257th nationally in adjusted tempo. However, its defense is significantly better when matched up with teams who slow the game down.
The Bison rarely have to defend in transition — just 10.2 percent of defensive possessions — due to their highly efficient scoring (24th in eFG%) and low turnover rate (20th in TO%). They struggle against faster-paced offenses, though. Lipscomb is 18-1 against teams ranked 184th or slower in average possession length (5-8 otherwise) and 11-0 against teams ranked 250th or slower (12-9 otherwise).
Diving deeper into it, the Bison allow a .500 eFG% on shots attempted in the first 20 seconds of the shot clock (65th percentile nationally), compared to .456 on shots in the last 10 seconds (97th percentile). It is not surprising that opponents finding open shots earlier in possessions leads to more success, but the differential in national percentiles is notable.
Similar NCAA Tournament efficiency profiles
Tournament Index evaluation
As it stands, Lipscomb is a projected No. 13 seed by our bracketology at Heat Check CBB and as a No. 14 seed on the Bracket Matrix. The Bison would rate as the 12th-strongest No. 14 seed of the last 10 seasons (40 total No. 14 seeds) by the Tournament Index. The No. 14 seeds with higher TI ratings over the last 10 years have combined for four NCAA Tournament wins, while those with lower TI ratings have combined for only two. Should the Bison move up or down, they would be either the 24th-strongest 13-seed of the last 10 years or the third-strongest 15-seed.
The TI projects an average of 0.24 wins for Lipscomb given their projected seed and strength.
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