ABILENE ? Abilene Christian came out firing on all cylinders, however, the Wildcats went ice cold in the second half as Midwestern State cruised to a 88-66 victory at McMurry's Kimbrell Arena Saturday afternoon.
The Wildcats shot 52 percent from the floor in the first half, but followed by hitting only 8 for 38 in the second half for a dismal 21.1 percent. ACU played without starting point guard Riley Lambert and the team's third-leading scorer Milos Klimovic played limited minutes because of injury.
The Mustangs took advantage of ACU and its short bench playing nine players at least 12 minutes and keeping an up-tempo pace that the Wildcats couldn't keep up with in the second half.
After MSU led by only three points at halftime, but the Mustangs out-scored ACU 48-29 in the second half. MSU was hot in both halves unfortunately for the Wildcats; the Mustangs shot 57 percent for the entire contest and canned 10 3-pointers on 21 attempts.
Nolan Richardson IV led all scorers with 26 points on 9 of 18 shooting and the senior guard hit six 3-pointers on 13 attempts. Much of MSU's success came in transition with the Mustangs scoring 30 points on the fast break thanks to 13 assists from Earl Rabb, who chipped in seven points and seven boards as well. Charlie Logan added 19 points and was an astounding 9 of 10 from the floor.
Dante Adams was the bright spot for ACU in the loss; the senior forward had 22 points on 6 of 13 shooting and made 4 of 10 shots from beyond the 3-point arc. Ean Wagner scored eight points in the first 3:46 of the game but finished with 12 points after the hot start.
The Wildcats ? who were eliminated from Lone Star Conference postseason contention in Wednesday's loss to Tarleton State ? dropped to 8-16 overall and moved to 2-8 in league play. MSU improved to 19-6 overall and 8-2 in the LSC South; the Mustangs are still in contention for the regular season LSC South title.
