ABILENE – The Abilene Christian basketball teams face their toughest opposition of the season Saturday when they play host to first-place Tarleton State at Moody Coliseum. The Lone Star Conference doubleheader will be broadcast locally by
Grant Boone on KSLI 1280 AM starting at 1:55 p.m.
Winners of 11 straight, the Texans entered the week as the nation's No. 6 team behind an overall record of 14-1 and 6-0 conference mark, while their female counterparts have won eight straight in lifting their records to 10-5 and 7-0. Both Tarleton teams defeated Angelo State earlier in the week, with the Texans winning, 76-55, and the TexAnns victorious, 77-63.
ACU also swept its doubleheader Wednesday night at Texas A&M-Commerce. Rejuvenated by the returns of
Armani Williams (13 pts.) and
Eric Kibi (13 pts., 9 reb.), the Wildcat men's team outscored the Lions 19-6 in overtime en route to a 92-79 victory.
Antonio Bell led all Wildcats with 21 points, which help propel ACU (7-8, 1-6 LSC) to its first conference victory of the season.
Mack Lankford also returned from injury this week and scored seven points in eight minutes to help ACU (7-7, 2-6 LSC) top Commerce, 77-65. Kelsey Smith also had a great game complete with 20 points and 11 rebounds, while Paige Parliament and Cecilee Perez contributed 12 and 10 points, respectively.
In dropping Commerce to 1-12 on the season, the Wildcats held the Lions to six percent shooting from the 3-point arc (1-for-17) and outscored them at the free-throw line, 34-8. ACU also did a much better job of holding onto the ball in committing a season low 13 turnovers.
As for No. 6 Tarleton State, Chris Harrell continues to lead the Texans in scoring with 13.3 points per game. Fabian Wilson, Zach Nelson and Shedrick Haynes are all averaging double-digit points as well. Haynes has been the main distributor with 3.6 assists each contest. Wilson leads the team with 7.0 rebounds per game and had 12 vs. Angelo State.
Tarleton's strength, however, remains its defense with opponents shooting just 35.1 percent overall and averaging 51.9 points per game this season. The Texans are tops among all NCAA DII schools in both categories.
Kiara Wright (15.2 ppg), and Shelby (14.1) and Peyton Adamson (12.2) lead the TexAnns on offense. Wright also is the team's best rebounder with a 9.2 per game average.
Peyton Adamson is close to shooting 40 percent (39.4) from the 3-point line, and against Angelo State she came within one 3-pointer of tying the Tarleton single game record for threes in a game. Adamson finished with 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting.
Live stats can be found off the home and schedule pages at ACUSports.com. KSTV 93.1 FM will provide Tarleton's radio broadcast.
Information from TarletonSports.com was used in this release.
