ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's basketball team battled back from an 18-point second half deficit to get within two points of West Texas, but
Kendall Durant's 3-point attempt fell short and the Buffaloes left Moody Coliseum Tuesday night with a closer-than-expected 61-58 victory.
Perhaps the Wildcats (5-4, 0-2 Lone Star Conference) should have never been in position to win this game, especially after they went 12 minutes and 33 seconds with a single point between the first and second halves. No threes, no layups, no jumpers, not even a free throw. Nothing.
At one point though late in the first half, ACU had all the momentum on its side.
Da-Juan Cooper brought the crowd to its feet with a monster slam dunk and on the next possession
Kendall Durant buried a three that boosted its lead to six points at the 4:18 mark.
Then ACU went stone cold in missing its final three field goal attempts of the first half mixed in with five turnovers and a technical foul on
Marc Little as the buzzer sounded. Lucky for the Wildcats, however, that West Texas wasn't connecting on much either and only entered the break up by three points at 31-28.
But over the first six minutes of the second half that manageable deficit soon ballooned into a 17-point disadvantage as Kennon Washington, Donald Sims and Courtney Carr combined to score 14 points. Meanwhile, the Wildcats came up empty on their first nine field-goal attempts, and didn't even reach the line until there was 11:45 remaining.
Marc Little knocked down his two free throws to bring the West Texas lead back down to 15, only to see David Henderson answer with a 3-pointer that gave the Buffs their largest lead of the night at 18 points.
Then, slowly but surely, everything started to go ACU's way.
Antonio Bell and
Dosh Simms hit two baskets within 30 seconds that cut the deficit to 11, and then as West Texas's shooting started to sour, the Wildcats connected on six of their next seven free throws.
Bell again came through with a huge 3-pointer at the 4:53 mark that brought ACU within eight points, and just over a minute later, both
Ben Warton and Durant dropped in layups that made it a four-point game at 55-51 and 3:31 to go.
The scored stayed that way for close to two minutes before West Texas finally broke through on Carr's second-effort basket that pushed the Buffs' lead back to six. But ACU's
Zach Williams came back with seven straight points, including a floating 10-footer that made it a one-possession game with nine seconds remaining.
After being fouled by
Marcus Norman, Lionel Foster made only one of his two free throws to give ACU one last opportunity to tie the game. Durant's first 3-point attempt with just over a second remaining fell short but the ball was touched by a West Texas defender before going out of bounds, giving the home club one last chance with .06 seconds left. The inbound pass arrived to Durant near the ACU bench, but his split second effort from the corner hit the side of the rim.
Durant finished the game with nine points and five rebounds, while Williams led all players with 16 points. Bell contributed 11 points along with two blocks and a steal.
Sims of West Texas finished a rebound shy of a double-double complete with a team-high 15 points. Washington scored 12 and dished out three assists.
The Buffs forced ACU in 22 turnovers, which they converted into 24 points. By comparison, the Wildcats scored just nine points off 13 West Texas miscues.
The Wildcats return to action this weekend with a road game at Eastern New Mexico. Tip-off time is set for 8:30 p.m. MT/6:30 CT.
#
