ABILENE – The Abilene Christian basketball teams continue Lone Star Conference play this week with road games at West Texas A&M Wednesday night followed by a Saturday afternoon doubleheader at Moody Coliseum with Eastern New Mexico.
Grant Boone will broadcast all four games locally on KSLI 1280 AM. Additionally, the Wildcats' twinbill with the Zias and Greyhounds will be streamed over the World Wide Web at
FoxSportsSouthwest.com.
An extra added attraction for Saturday's home games is the debut of Retro Sing Song Night, in which all Abilene Christian groups, clubs and classes will dress in their favorite Sing Song costumes of the past. Groups are also encouraged to dress in theme for this year's act.
Guest judges will present two awards to the participants, one for the Most Involved, and the other for Most Spirited. Each winning group will receive extra practice time per award to be added to their overall score in the Sing Song competition. The 56th annual Sing Song takes place at Moody Coliseum February 17 and 18.
The ACU men's basketball team begins its week at 10-12 overall and 2-10 within the conference after losing its last two against Midwestern State and Cameron. The Wildcats are currently tied for eighth with Angelo State in the Lone Star Conference standings, 2.0 games behind seventh-place Texas A&M-Kingsville.
ACU's scoring offense ranks third in the LSC with 72.1 points per game and is led by Antonio Bell (13.0 ppg), Kendall Durant (12.4 ppg), and Zach Williams (12.4 ppg). Bell took over the team scoring lead over the weekend with 15 points against Midwestern State followed by a career high 29 at Cameron.
Defensively for the Wildcats, Dosh Simms ranks sixth in the league in rebounding with 6.3 boards per game.
The ACU women (8-12) also lost both games last week to Midwestern State and Cameron, dropping them to 10th place with a 3-11 conference record, 2.0 full games behind eighth-place Eastern New Mexico.
Mack Lankford continues to lead ACU and the conference (11th in the NCAA) in scoring with 19.9 points per game, and scored a combined 47 points during last week's games. Kelsey Smith has been getting the job done on both sides of the court as evidenced by her 15.0 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. Smith also ranks third within the conference and 28th nationally with 2.2 blocks per game.
West Texas A&M's women's team starts the week at 12-8 and 10-4, trying to hold off 10-5 Cameron for third place while attempting to catch Midwestern State, which is 2.0 games ahead in second place.
The Lady Buffs defeated the Wildcats in their previous meeting at Moody Coliseum on Dec. 13, 80-61. Four West Texas players scored in double figures that night led by Joni Unruh's 19 points on 6-of-8 shooting. The Lady Buffs also shot 67 percent in the second half to outscore ACU 45-39 down the stretch.
ACU beat Eastern New Mexico in Portales, N.M., 92-85 – a double-overtime thriller in which both sides exchanged the lead 14 times during the second half. Darrein Williams' 3-pointer with 48 seconds left in the second overtime served as the game-clinching shot, but the Wildcats also received tremendous efforts along the way from Smith (18 pts., 6 reb.) and freshman Paige Parliament (18 pts., 9 reb.).
The Zias (7-13, 5-9 LSC) come to Abilene with a little momentum behind them as they've won two straight and three of their last four after starting 2012 at 1-4.
ACU's men's team dropped both its prior decisions to West Texas (13-6, 7-5 LSC) and Eastern New Mexico (13-8, 6-6 LSC) when they met last December. The Wildcats were edged at home 61-58 by the Buffs before falling 68-59 to the Greyhounds on the road.
In their 3-point loss to West Texas, the Wildcats battled back from an 18-point second-half deficit to get within two points of the Buffs, but Durant's last-second 3-point attempt fell short. The Wildcats' comeback over the last several minutes was particularly spectacular since there was one stretch earlier in the game where they didn't score a single point for 12 minutes and 33 seconds.
Zach Williams led all players that night with 16 points, and scored seven straight during the Wildcats' rally, including a floating 10-footer that made it a one-possession game with nine seconds remaining.
