ABILENE – One night after needing a last-second shot from
Marc Little to win their season-opener, the ACU Wildcats needed no such late-game heroics Saturday night at Moody Coliseum.
The Wildcats never trailed on their way to an 89-72 dismantling of East Central in the final game of the ACU Whitten Inn Tipoff Classic. ACU is 2-0 on the season and is off until next weekend when it plays in the Texas-Permian Basin Classic in Odessa. ACU will play UTPB on Friday before taking on Texas A&M International on Saturday.
ACU never trailed and the only tie in the contest was the 0-0 tie before tipoff. The Wildcats came out of the gates hot as they hit their first two shots on a jumper by
Eric Kibi and a 3-pointer by Little, and they never looked back en route to the victory.
East Central got the ACU lead down to 22-21 with 6:39 left in the first half, but the Wildcats responded with a 7-0 run to get the lead back to 29-21 with 5:41 left in the half.
Armani Williams – who had a team-high 18 points coming off the bench – capped the run with a 3-pointer to push the ACU lead back to eight points. ACU's lead never dropped below six points the rest of the way.
ACU carried a 40-29 lead into halftime and then opened the second half on a 26-7 run that pushed the lead to 66-36 with 11:12 left in the game. Kibi put the finishing touches on the run with a jumper to give the Wildcats their first 30-point lead. ACU's largest lead of the night was 32 points (72-40 at 9:57 on a dunk by
Kendall Durant and 74-42 on a
Zach Williams dunk with 8:56 left in the game).
Williams led the Wildcats with those 18 points, followed by Little's 13 points and 10 points apiece from Williams and
Desmond Woodberry. ACU shot 50.8 percent from the field (33 of 65), including 47.8 percent from 3-point range (11 for 23).
