FLORENCE, Ala. (March 3, 2025) – North Alabama Men’s Basketball advanced to the semifinal round of the 2025 Atlantic Sun Conference Championship on Monday night, deploying No. 7 seed Austin Peay with a 90-69 victory inside CB&S Bank Arena in Florence.
The No. 2 Lions will host No. 4 Jacksonville on Thursday night at 6 p.m. inside CB&S Bank Arena.
Tonight mark UNA’s first postseason home game as a Division I member, as CB&S Bank Arena drew a sold out crowd of 3,000 fans. The Lions last hosted a postseason game in 2017 during the first round of the Gulf South Conference Championship. UNA transitioned to Division I in 2018.
The Lions are in the semifinal round for a second straight season. Last year, UNA made national headlines with a buzzer beater to eliminate Lipscomb in the quarterfinal round. UNA is on the hunt for its first championship final appearance since 2021.
Junior Jacari Lane was virtually unstoppable, scoring 31 points on 9-13 shooting from the floor and 7-8 shooting behind the arc. This is one point short of his career high last set against Samford in November.
Five Lions reached double figure scoring totals, including redshirt sophomore Corneilous Williams with 14 points and 14 rebounds for his 10th double-double of the season. Off the bench, junior Donte Bacchus added 16 points. Seniors Taye Fields and Daniel Ortiz added 12 and 10, respectively.
UNA went 13-22 behind the arc for a new season-high percentage of 59.1.
Defensively, UNA held Austin Peay below its season average of 71 points per game. A key reason for that was Isaac Haney, who averaged 30 PPG inside CB&S Bank Arena coming into tonight. He was held to just eight points.
HOW IT HAPPENED
First Half: UNA shot over 50 percent in both halves, but started with a 54.8 percentage on 17-31 shooting. Lane set the tone immediately with a two-point jumper in the first 23 seconds, getting the crowd hyped. Later, UNA went on a 9-0 run to hop to a 20-9 lead. Austin Peay never pulled back within nine from that point on. Lane and Bacchus went on to combine for 30 points in the opening frame.
Second Half: Lane opened the second half with a triple in the first two minutes, pushing the lead to 21. The lead got as high as 30 points at one point as a Williams dunk made it 62-32 with 15:20 to go. Austin Peay dwindled the lead back down to 15 at one point, as the Lions dug into the rotation. However, Williams later caught an alley-oop from Ortiz to push it back to 20 in the final four minutes. UNA coasted the rest of the way and shook hands with the Govs at the end.
COMING UP NEXT
The Lions welcome Jacksonville to Florence on Thursday for the semifinal round. The winner will advance to face either No. 1 Lipscomb or No. 6 Queens in the championship game on Sunday at 1 p.m. With a win, UNA will host the championship game if Queens wins but will travel to Nashville if Lipscomb wins.
For more information, click here.
For more information on North Alabama Athletics, visit www.roarlions.com and follow UNA Athletics on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
