ABILENE – The Abilene Christian basketball teams begin their final month of the regular season Saturday afternoon at Cameron's Aggie Gym for a Lone Star Conference doubleheader. Action begins at 2 p.m. with the women's game immediately followed by the men's contest.
Grant Boone will handle the play-by-play duties for both games broadcast locally on KSLI 1280 AM.
Both Wildcat squads lost Tuesday night at home to Midwestern State, keeping them on the outside looking in for the postseason tournament. The men's 79-78 stomach-punch loss dropped its season and conference records to 10-11 and 2-9 – tied with Angelo State for eighth place.
The ACU women remain in a tie with Texas A&M-Kingsville for ninth place at 3-10 and are 8-11 overall following a 92-80 defeat to the second-place Mustangs.
ACU's men's loss vs. MSU was its most unfortunate of the season – a game in which Antonio Bell's game-tying 3-pointer with less than a second remaining was effectively cancelled out by a technical foul called on Da-Juan Cooper for taunting.
As a result, MSU's Michael Loyd was sent to the free-throw line where he hit one of two shots, allowing the nation's 11th-ranked team a chance to win in regulation and avoid the upset.
In the women's game, ACU trailed by double digits on multiple occasions but pulled to within three points at 85-82 with 49 seconds remaining following Mack Lankford's put-back on a missed free throw.
Seconds later though Lankford reached in trying to get the ball from Kristi Degelia and fouled out in the process, sending Degelia to the free-throw line where she made it a four-point game, and that was as close as the Wildcats would get.
Sadie Dickinson missed two 3-pointers in the closing seconds and MSU – which finished 27 of 31 from the free throw line – hit four straight over the final 19 seconds for the final margin.
Kelsey Smith led all scorers with 27 points to go along with 11 rebounds, her second straight double-double and fourth of the season for the Wildcats. Lankford had 21 points, six rebounds and four assists, while
Renata Marquez had 16 points.
Cameron's men's team begins the weekend with a 12-7 overall record, and recently improved to 8-5 within the conference following a 56-52 triumph at Angelo State that stopped a two-game losing streak and kept them tied for third with Incarnate Word. Milton Garner and Thomas Razor each contributed 15 points for the Aggies, and Desmond Henry pulled down nine rebounds.
In Cameron's first meeting against the Wildcats on Dec. 10 at Moody Coliseum, Garner led all Aggies with 20 points, hitting 6-of-17 shots from the floor and 6-of-7 from the foul line. The Wildcats – led by Kendall Durant's 23 points – led by as many as 11 points early in the second half before the Aggies began to chip away. A pair of three-point plays by Desmond Henry and Thomas Razor cut the Wildcats' lead to five within a minute of action, and then Razor dropped in another layup that made it a one-possession game at the 12:29 mark.
Marc Little buried a 3-pointer after the final media timeout at 3:55 to put ACU up for the final time at 54-53, but Cameron responded with game-ending 11-3 run.
The Cameron women's team (13-6, 9-5) is coming off a tough 54-53 overtime loss at Angelo State, which dropped the Aggies into fifth place and a half-game behind West Texas A&M and the Rambelles. Sabelle Diata led the Aggies in rebounds with 13 and tied with Julie Paunovic with a team-high 14 points, but each was held scoreless over the final two minutes as ASU pulled away for good.
In its first game with the Aggies this winter, ACU used a 25-9 second-half run to whittle a 15-point halftime deficit down to two, but during a crucial free-throw series with nine seconds remaining the Wildcats missed a defensive assignment that allowed Lacy Reinke to run untouched to the rim and score the clinching points in a 59-55 victory.
Smith's 22 points and eight boards led ACU, while
Paige Parliament contributed 13 points and nine rebounds. Paunovic led the Cameron offense with 20 points and was 4-of-4 from 3-point range.
