ABILENE -- Fighting to keep their chances at a berth in the Lone Star Conference Post-Season Tournament alive, the ACU Wildcats came up with one of their best performances of the season Saturday afternoon in a 79-68 win over Eastern New Mexico at Moody Coliseum.
The win pushes the Wildcats to 11-13 overall and 3-11 in the LSC, while the Greyhounds fall to 13-10 and 6-8. ACU's stretch of must-win games continues Wednesday night at the McDermott Center in San Antonio when the Wildcats take on Incarnate Word.
If West Texas A&M can knock off Angelo State later Saturday night, the Wildcats and Rams will be in a tie for eighth place in the LSC standings with the top eight teams in the league standings at the end of the regular season earning a berth in the LSC Post-Season Tournament, which begins the last week of February in Allen. If ACU and Angelo State end up with the same recod, the league will go through its lengthy tie-breaking procedure to determine the tournament's No. 8 seed.
The game turned in the final five minutes after ENMU had taken a 65-63 lead with 5:05 to play on a jumper by Greg McFarland.
Kendall Durant -- who had perhaps his best game as a Wildcat with 17 points, seven assists and one steal in 32 minutes -- tied the game just 23 seconds later with a running jumper, knotting the contest at 65-65.
Marc Little then took over for a few minutes, and it was enough to give the Wildcats the breathing room they needed.
He hit two free throws with 3:27 to play to make it 67-65 before
Eric Kibi drained two free throws with 3:06 to play to give the Wildcats a 69-65 lead. ENMU's Devone Davis hit a driving layup with 2:35 to play to cut ACU's lead back to two points and setting up a tight closing two minutes.
Little, though, hit the dagger with 2:18 left when he took a feed from Durant and buried a 3-pointer from the left wing to give the Wildcats a 72-67 lead. The two teams traded free throws befor
Dosh Simms hit a driving layup on a feed from Durant to make it a 75-68 game with 1:12 to play.
Little hit two free throws with 47 seconds left to make it 77-68 and Durant finished it off with two free throws to make it 79-68 with 25 seconds to play. The Wildcats finished 21 of 26 from the free throw line and shot 52 percent from the floor (26 of 50).
Durant had a team-high 17 points, while Kibi had 14 points and six rebounds off the bench. Little had 11 points off the bench, while
Antonio Bell had 10 points on 3 of 6 shooting from the floor, including 2 of 4 from 3-point range. Freshman
Da-Juan Cooper had a nice night with seven points and seven rebounds in just 14 minutes.
All of that work was enough to offset the 35 points from ENMU guard Reggie Nelson, who was 11 of 19 from the floor, including 7 of 10 from 3-point range. The Greyhounds hit 11 of 24 shots from 3-point range, but it wasn't enough to overcome the Wildcats.
