ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's basketball team continues its Lone Star Conference schedule Saturday with at 7 p.m. game at Tarleton State, which boasts the nation's top shooter in sophomore Davene Carter. The game will be broadcast locally on 1280-AM KSLI with
Grant Boone and Jason Copeland providing play-by-play and analysis.
ACU is 1-1 away from Moody Coliseum this season, but that one victory was a historic one as it snapped a 14-year winless streak in Canyon against West Texas A&M. Now ACU is faced with a similar challenge as it tries to win its first game in Stephenville since the 1998 LSC Championship, where it beat the Texans, 71-68. However, the Wildcats' last regular season win at Tarleton State took place all the way back in January 1994 – two years prior to the Texans joining the LSC.
Following the Wildcats' program-changing 59-58 win at 18th-ranked WT, they stumbled slightly in the LSC standings after losing consecutive home games on the final possession to both Eastern New Mexico and Texas A&M-Commerce. The Greyhounds slipped past ACU, 62-60, on Saturday with Rodney Blackmon sinking the game-winning layup with a second to spare, and then on Tuesday after the Wildcats overcame a nine-point deficit in just over a minute, Commerce's Tyrie Wooten rose above several defenders to pop in a jumper with two ticks left.
“We guarded that play a little bit better tonight, but the kid went up and hit a tough shot,” said
Joe Golding during his postgame interview. “Even though we battled back and showed a lot of heart and character, we put ourselves in a bad situation earlier in the second half. We have to get better defensively. We can't allow any team to shoot 71 percent against us in a half.”
Tarleton (4-2, 0-1 LSC) also suffered a tough conference loss, falling Wednesday night at Angelo State, 57-52, a game in which the Texans committed 19 turnovers and shot just 25 percent from 3-point range. Tarleton's other loss this year came in the season opener to Southwestern Assemblies of God, 73-60, but it won four straight afterward over Permian Basin, East Central, Dallas Christian and Arlington Baptist.
The Texans are one of the conference's top defensive teams in surrendering just 61.5 points per game, but they also possess two major offensive weapons in the 6-foot-6 Carter and junior guard Coleman Furst. Carter is averaging 11.0 points per game and leads all NCAA D-II players with a .882 field-goal percentage on 30 of 34 shooting. The forward made 16 consecutive baskets in between wins over East Central (6-6) and Dallas Christian (10-10) and was 9 of 10 from the floor over the last two games.
Furst, meanwhile, is ranked among the LSC's top-10 scorers with 14.3 points per game and is tops with a .579 field-goal percentage (11-19).
For the Wildcats, they are led by senior guards
Eric Lawton and
Elliott Lloyd – the No. 3 and 10 ranked scorers in the LSC with 16.9 and 14.0 points per game. Lawton also is first in the conference with 2.6 3-pointers per game and has connected on 18 of his 38 attempts (.474).
Senior center
Steven Werner is the league's no. 4 rebounder with a 7.7 per game average and junior
Cornelius Cammock has come off the bench to claim ACU's best individual field goal percentage of .617 (29-47).
Both ACU and Tarleton State have collectively struggled at the free-throw line. The Texans rank eighth among the 10 conference teams in free-throw percentage at .577 (86-149), while the Wildcats are right behind them in ninth at .575 (65-113). Kingsville is last at .574 (93-162).
In its two losses to Eastern and Commerce, ACU players went a combined 18 of 34 (.529) from the charity stripe.
