ASUN underdogs on their way to fight for the banner

When Lipscomb men’s basketball head coach Kevin Carroll took over the program, there were just a few days left with an open transfer portal. Most of Lipscomb’s basketball players had already graduated or transferred, and Carroll was left with just seven returning players.

Of those seven, only three had started or seen major minutes. The other four had either redshirted, or not seen much court time. Carroll had just a few days to find transfers in the portal, and had to take his team up to a 15-man roster. When another of the seven left, he was set with the task of finding nine men before summer training.

Despite the daunting task set ahead of him, Carroll did just that, building out his team with a mix of national and foreign players. Though the portal had been open for quite some time before he began looking, the “best” players theoretically already taken, Carroll saw something in those that had been overlooked. Something special that other coaches and programs hadn’t noticed or recognized.

“It was exhausting,” Carroll said, shaking his head and chuckling. “I literally was a one-man band for about two weeks just trying to get a staff hired. That was exhausting. Then for probably about a month-and-a-half to two months it was, you know, you’re here by 8:30 in the morning, and you’re leaving sometimes at 12:30, one o’clock at night every day, five days a week, really six days a week, probably for the better part of the month-and-a-half.”

Carroll put a lot of time and effort into building the team, adding with a laugh that logging those kind of hours was a great diet plan. “You just don’t ever sleep and only eat one meal a day, and it’s amazing how much weight you lose,” he joked.

The team he put so much work into assembling has gelled over the regular season into a talented, close-knit squad, bringing home 19 wins, with a 13-1 record at home, the highest the men’s basketball team has seen in over 20 years. The Bisons have taken on some tough nonconference teams, including then-No.3 Duke, who only managed to beat them 97-73.

Though the Bisons were picked seventh in the ASUN Preseason Coaches’ Poll and fifth in the ASUN Preseason Media Poll, they’ve done far better than most might’ve expected. In fact, the team finished No.4 in the ASUN, with a 12-6 conference record. Though Carroll said that it was probably safe to say that the world would’ve chosen them as the underdogs for the season, the team has come together in spite of that. In fact, they may have come together more strongly because of it.

“I’m really fine with us being the underdogs,” freshman forward Kennedy Okpara said with a grin. Okpara came from Lagos, Nigeria, and was recruited by Carroll back when he was still a sophomore in high school. “We have something to prove… every time we step on the court, playing against all the guys in the conference… I will stick with the underdogs and always come out with a high chip on our shoulder, coming to make a statement and keep winning.”

“I like being underdogs,” Carroll said, agreeing with Okpara. “And honestly, this is my fourth head coaching job, and at the previous three we were major underdogs, with a pretty big discrepancy in terms of resources or tradition or whatever. Now Lipscomb, it’s not that, but with this team, maybe you could say [we were underdogs]… and you know, I kind of like sometimes being on that side of it and kind of having a chip on your shoulder and trying to prove people wrong.”

Over the course of the season, the Bisons have come together not just as teammates, but as friends as well. Though the players hail from four different countries and 10 different states, bringing a variety of backgrounds to the team, they all genuinely like being in each other’s company.

“I just feel like there’s an enjoyment between [all] 15 guys,” graduate student forward Grant Asman said. Asman has been playing for the Bisons since his freshman season, seeing many different teammates come and go over the past five years. “We’ll hang out at Duncan’s apartment, or we’ll just hang out together in the locker room or whatever. It’s not like if [a certain] person’s in the locker room someone’s not really having a great time. I think we all enjoy each other no matter who’s around… we all just enjoy each other individually. We all have great relationships with each other.”

Asman added that this is his favorite team, of all the ones he’s been on over the years. The sentiment was shared by Carroll.

“This is year 26 [of coaching] for me, and it’s honestly been one of my favorite teams I’ve ever coached,” Carroll said. “I don’t think you can ever fully hope for what ended up happening with this team… We had nine new players, and at the time we had seven returners, one of them is no longer with us. But to think that the guys would mesh and gel together and support each other the way that they have, I don’t think that’s common. It just takes uncommon people, to be able to make all of that kind of work the way that it has, with selflessness and the care that I think that has been demonstrated with this team.”

This year’s ASUN championship has been moved to a “neutral site” in Jacksonville, Florida, taking away the ranked team’s possibilities of hosting at home. (Click here to read Tyler Jorden’s article on the change) The format has also been slightly changed, with the teams who advance competing in back-to-back-to-back games.

“Five through 12 will all play on Wednesday at Jacksonville or North Florida, and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it’s at some arena,” said Asman, explaining that he wasn’t sure whose arena it was. “It’ll be Friday, Saturday, Sunday, back-to-back days… Three games in three days will be tough on everyone’s body.”

Though the team has consistently done better at home than away, over the course of the season, Carroll said he wasn’t too concerned over losing the “home advantage,” because every team competing was.

“You’re not playing a true road game, everybody’s playing on the road,” he explained. Carroll added that the team has played seven of their last 10 games on the road, giving them a lot of practice away from home.

“I think by the time we get to [the championship], there’s not going to be anything that phases us. We’ve already beaten the team that’s in first place this year, although it was at home, and we were up at halftime on the road at their place,” Carroll said. “There’s kind of been four teams that have separated themselves over the season. And I think any of those four teams could probably beat any of the other ones, on any given day.”

Of course, Lipscomb hopes to be the team that beats the others, and both Asman and Carroll credited the depth on their bench as one of the strengths helping them toward that possibility. The Bisons routinely play 10 of the men off their bench, out of the 15 on their roster. The other five aren’t playing because they’re redshirting. Playing 10, and starting a different lineup out of that 10 many games, is something most teams can’t pull off, lacking the deep roster Lipscomb has.

“Probably one of our biggest strengths is we have six guys on our team that could lead us in scoring on any given day,” Carroll said. “When you play Central Arkansas, you know you’ve got to stop Camren Hunter, when you play North Florida, you know you’ve got to stop Kamrin Oriol. You know when you play Austin Peay that they’ve got two guys you’ve got to be able to stop.”

“With our team, I don’t know if you can go into a game and say, hey, if you stop this guy or these two guys, you’re gonna give yourself a chance to win the game. I think that’s the beauty of this team… we’ve got close to six guys that’re averaging close to double figure points every game, and that’s just, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team quite like that,” Carroll continued.

“No one’s being selfish and trying to do their own kind of thing when they get out there, and they’re all just trying to accomplish the same goal,” said Asman. “The depth on the bench too, I feel like everyone can come in and contribute to the team. That’ll be beneficial, especially with the tournament now three games in three days… we have a deep bench, and everyone’s gonna contribute, which is a good thing that we have, because we could play nine, 10 guys at a time. Which I think will be a benefit when we go down there.”

“We’ve played 10 guys regularly,” Carroll said. “Other than games where we’ve had injuries, I think we’ve played 10 guys in all but one of our games this year. Some guys may be getting less minutes, but there have been nights where they’ve stepped up and kind of been the reason we won. So there is a lot of depth there, which I think can help us win in different ways.”

“As a player who was on the team last year, [there was] far more joy in that moment that I felt last year compared to any career high that I might have had this year,” Asman said about winning the ASUN in 2025. “The [win] last year was one of the most joyous times I’ve had in my basketball career.”

“We’re gonna do it together, we’re gonna be tough, and we’re gonna make this work,” said Okpara. “Coach always talks about how adversity brings [the question], are you gonna come together or are you going to spread apart? And I feel like that’s helped us come together. And really you know, are we going through this by ourselves? Or are we gonna do this together?”

“I feel like adversity is like a privilege, because other teams, other players, JUCO guys, they want to be in our shoes. To experience the same adversity we are and get to fight,” Okpara continued. “So I feel like our adversity kind of helped us come together and come on the court to play together, play for teammates, our coaches, for the family, for the fans.”

The Bisons will start playing in the ASUN Tournament on March 4, in Jacksonville, Florida. The tournament will run through the 8, and can be watched on ESPN+, with the championship game broadcast on ESPN2.

Featured image taken by Micah Barkley.