Tag: media

Indiana Lyons Dominate Twice

The Indiana Lyons dominated at Bosstick Gym in Danville this past weekend, crushing two opponents and running their season record to 10-2. Another home game is on the slate this Saturday.

Last Saturday, the Lyons hosted the Windy City Inferno out of Chicago for the first time in their history. Before the game, the Lyons and the Inferno celebrated the recent 100th birthday of Lyons fan Louise Leach with a pregame ceremony that included the Lyons presenting an official American Basketball Association (ABA) basketball to her and a huge ovation from the crowd.

Then the Lyons got down to business.

For the first four game minutes or so, this one was competitive, but after that, it was all purple and teal. Slow starters in many games this season, the Lyons bucked tradition and bolted to a 36-20 lead after the first 12:00. They held a 62-50 advantage at halftime.

After that, an avalanche of fouls rained down on the Inferno, including four costly technical fouls, and the Lyons pulled away with a 149-112 victory to move their record to 9-2.

On Sunday, the Missouri Capitals came to town from Columbia, Missouri. Having faced the Capitals many times over the past seven years, including once in November in Missouri in which the Lyons won 135-100, the home team did not take the visitors for granted.

Instead, they roared out to a 21-0 lead to open the game and held the Capitals scoreless for the first 4:10 of the contest. The Lyons showed no mercy in the first frame, finishing the first quarter with a staggering 52-12 lead.

It never got any better for the Capitals, and with the starters pulled for much of the second half, the Lyons completed the regular season sweep of the Capitals, 177-61, to improve to 10-2 on the season.

The 116-point win was the second-largest margin of victory for the Lyons in franchise history. In 2019, Indiana won a game by 218 points over a now-defunct team from West Virginia.

Just before tipoff on Sunday, the Lyons celebrated rookie Mike Osborne, who wears #1 for the team. Osborne will graduate from Aurora University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business on Saturday.

The dominating victory was a very nice graduation present for Osborne.

Next up for the Lyons are the Akron Aviators, who come to town from Ohio on Saturday. Tipoff is at 5 p.m., with the doors opening at 4 p.m. Tickets are just $10/person. Admission is only $5 for children ages 6-11, seniors ages 55+, active military, military veterans, and first responders. Children ages 5 and under are free.

On Sunday, the Lyons travel to Kentucky in search of revenge against the Maysville Miners. The Miners handed the Lyons one of their two losses back in October at Bosstick Gym, releasing the game-winning shot with 0:00.07 seconds left on the game clock and escaping town with a one-point win.

The Indiana Lyons are owned by Hendricks County residents and business owners Deborah and Tyrone Brown.

Indiana Lyons Return From Long Road Trip

The Indiana Lyons spent the majority of November on the road but will return to Bosstick Gym in Danville for home games on Dec. 7, 8, 14 and 22.

This Saturday, the Lyons host the Windy City Inferno out of Chicago at 5 p.m. in Bosstick Gym. Doors open at 4 p.m. Tickets are just $10 per person or $5 per child, senior aged 55+, military veteran, active military, or first responder. Children ages 5 and under are free.

This will be the first time that the Lyons have ever faced the Inferno.

On Sunday, the Missouri Capitals come to town from St. Louis to face the Lyons at 4 p.m. in Bosstick Gym. Doors open at 3 p.m.

The Lyons and Capitals have faced off many times over the years, including one of the games on the Lyons’ long road trip, when the Lyons won 135-100 in St. Louis.

November sent Hendricks County’s own professional basketball team to Cincinnati, Peoria, Chicago, St. Louis, and New Castle for a total of six games on the road. During that stretch, the Lyons beat one of their biggest rivals, the Ohio Kings, as well as a team ranked in the Top 10 of the American Basketball Association (ABA), the Southland Saints.

Now sitting at 8-2 on the season, the 2022-23 ABA Champions are ready for some home cooking in December.

“Fan support energizes our players,” said Lyons co-owner, CEO, and head coach Tyrone Brown. “We need the Lyons Pride to show up in full force this month to reenergize our guys as we close out 2024 and the first half of our season. We’ve been gone for so long, we really need to feel our fans’ love.”

The Lyons have added a new facet to halftime entertainment — a half-court shot contest. For just $5 per shot, fans can come on the floor at halftime and attempt what would be a 4-point shot in the ABA. Any fan who makes the shot wins half the cumulative pot, with the other half of the pot supporting the Lyons.

Fans can purchase shot attempts at each home game.

Later in December, the Lyons will host the Akron Aviators and the Indiana Legends, and they travel to Kentucky to face the Maysville Miners, who handed them one of their losses in the very last second of the game.

In a heart-stopping finish at Bosstick Gym in October, the Miners shot the ball with 0.007 seconds remaining and scored the game-winning basket. The Lyons hope to repay the favor mid-month in Maysville.

The Lyons also travel to Chicago to visit the Chi-Town Rebels right before Christmas.

The Indiana Lyons are owned by Hendricks County residents and business owners Tyrone and Deborah Brown.

Lyons Roar Pre-Game Show to Debut in October on Lyons Pride +

Jim Holtsclaw (L) and Eric Ivie (R) during the 2023 ABA Final Eight. (Photo by TOPP Level Entertainment, LLC)

The defending ABA Champion Indiana Lyons are bringing even more content to their devoted Lyons Pride with a new weekly pre-game show called “The Lyons Roar” making its debut on Lyons Pride + during the last week in October, prior to the Nov. 4 season opener against the Burning River Buckets.

“The Lyons Roar” will be a weekly discussion between Eric Ivie — the Lyons’ play-by-play commentator in their game videos — and Jim Holtsclaw — the team’s color commentator — on a wide variety of topics relating to the Indiana Lyons, the American Basketball Association, and whatever else might come out of their mouths.

Eric and Jim will have a list of topics of discussion for each episode of “The Lyons Roar,” but their conversation about each topic will be entirely unscripted. Each episode will range from 15-30 minutes in length.

“This will be a great opportunity for diehard Lyons fans to gain some insight into the team, their upcoming opponents, and what’s going on around the ABA while hopefully enjoying some halfway decent entertainment,” said Eric. “Lyons Pride + separates the devoted fans from the casual fans, so it’s the perfect format for ‘The Lyons Roar.'”

Eric joined the Indiana Lyons staff as the Director of Communications in February of 2020 and has served in that role ever since. Lyons fans are familiar with his voice, commentary, emotional outbursts and antics throughout game videos over the past two seasons.

Jim came aboard late in the 2022-23 season, joining Eric in the broadcast of an intrasquad scrimmage before the Lyons traveled to St. Louis for the ABA Final Eight tournament. Jim and Eric were both in Missouri for the entire tournament that culminated in the Lyons’ ABA championship.

After their request to record and comment on the Lyons’ Final Eight games was denied by the ABA, the pair were in the stands for both of team’s games, doing their best to emulate the noise of the Lyons Pride in an empty gym. They were also in the gym on the night of the ABA Championship.

“That’s likely to be a topic of discussion in our first episode,” Eric added. “I’m often asked what happened in Missouri that night. Jim and I were there at Ground Zero for all of it, and we have stories to tell.”

Outside of basketball, Jim and Eric are good friends and coworkers at Hendricks County Parks & Recreation, so their chemistry in their videos is genuine.

To subscribe to Lyons Pride + and watch “The Lyons Roar,” click here.

Subscribe to Indiana Lyons on YouTube!

The Indiana Lyons are switching from Facebook Live to YouTube for livestreaming home and away games, and in order for us to do this, we need 1,000 subscribers on our YouTube Channel.

We need EVERYONE to subscribe and to urge all your friends and family to subscribe, too!

Why not stick with Facebook Live, you ask? Because video viewership numbers on Facebook clearly show that we are not reaching our fans. Many of our fans don’t have or use Facebook.
It also requires a tremendous amount of time and effort to prepare for and execute a livestream. For away games, it’s very costly (fuel, hotel, food, time away from family, time off work during the playoffs). When the Facebook viewership is so low, it’s simply not worth it. Thus the move away from Facebook Live.
Our hope is that YouTube will allow us to reach a much broader and larger audience. We think the 1,000-subscriber threshold is going to be a good way to gauge interest in continued livestreams of our games. If we can get 1,000 subscribers by Nov, 4, 2022, that shows interest. If not, that tells us to focus our time and efforts elsewhere.
So use the hyperlink above or the QR code below to get to our channel, and subscribe now!