Abilene Christian's Lone Star Conference Starting 5 Fan Poll ... VOTING ENDS JAN. 29!
ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's basketball team reaches the halfway point of its Lone Star Conference schedule this week with a home-and-home series vs. Angelo State. The Wildcats and Rams will first meet Wednesday in San Angelo and then again Saturday night at Moody Coliseum.
Both games will air locally on 1280-AM KSLI. The ACU home contest also will be broadcast via the Internet at
SkyboxLive.com.
Saturday's home game also will serve as a Chapel Credit Night with special guests Guy and John Earle of
Think/Twice Ministries. The former NFL/CFL players will take to the court at halftime to deliver a high-energy message that intertwines biblical truth with life experiences from the football field. ACU students can earn two chapel credits by sliding their ID card before halftime of the women's game and then after halftime of the men's game.
ACU (8-8) and ASU (5-11) start their week tied for last place in the league at 2-6, but are only 1.0 game out of sixth place as the three teams ahead of them are all knotted at 3-5. Midwestern State remains in first at 7-1, followed by Incarnate Word at 6-2, Cameron and Kingsville at 5-3, and Commerce at 4-4.
The Wildcats last week played one of their best games of the season Tuesday at home, where they clobbered the Cardinals, 93-76, but they got off to a costly slow start on Saturday vs. the Javelinas en route to a 74-65 defeat. The Rams, meanwhile, followed a 14-point vs. Kingsville with a 100-83 loss at UIW, which was their eighth consecutive road defeat to begin the season.
ASU's other conference win – and first of the year – came at home vs. Tarleton, 57-52. The Rams, however, followed that triumph with a six-game losing streak that recently ended Jan. 12 vs. Northwood.
The Wildcats' senior class recorded some strong individual performances vs. the Cardinals, which included a pair of career best scoring totals from
Elliott Lloyd and
Dosh Simms. Lloyd sank four treys and 10 free throws as part of a 24-point effort, while Simms buried 7-of-9 buckets to finish with 17 points.
Guard
Eric Lawton also had a career night with nine assists and three steals; he then pulled down a personal best seven rebounds against the Javelinas. Lawton ranks second in the LSC to UIW's Dionelle Rucker in scoring with 17.1 points per game and is third with 4.5 assists per game.
Center
Steven Werner wrapped his week with a 16.5 point/5.5 rebound per game average. The senior ranks 10th in scoring with 12.6 points per game and is tied with Simms for fifth in rebounding at 6.6 per game.
As a team, ACU is third in the league in scoring offense (73.8) thanks to a No. 2-ranked field-goal percentage of .474 (440-929). They are also the LSC's No. 1 team in 3-point shooting (.380) and over the last few games have moved up several spots in terms of free-throw percentage (.643). The Wildcats made 23-of-26 free throws vs. the Cardinals (.885), but missed 11 of 34 (.676) at Kingsville.
Angelo State is averaging 70.6 points per game and is led by four players averaging double figures in scoring: Jovan Austin (12.5), Antonio Dye (11.7), Chris Talkington (11.4) and Dakota Rawls (11.1). And even though the Rams own the league's lowest field-goal percentage at .401, they have the best free throw percentage at .709 and fifth-best 3-point percentage at .351.
Angelo State also is skilled at forcing turnovers as it leads the league with a +4.06 turnover margin. The Rams have made the second fewest turnovers in the league at 182 and have forced their opponents into 247. Incarnate Word ranks second in this category among conference teams at +1.88, while ACU is fifth at +0.31.
ACU leads its all-time series vs. Angelo State, 57-43, but have not registered a sweep of the Rams since 2007-08. The two teams have split their last two series and ASU swept the Wildcats in back-to-back seasons from 2008-10.
