Abilene Christian's Lone Star Conference Starting 5 Fan Poll ... VOTE TODAY!
ABILENE – With the Abilene Christian women's basketball team playing at Texas Woman's this week, the men's team fills its Lone Star Conference bye week with home games against Arlington Baptist and Southwestern Adventist.
The Wildcats meet the Patriots Tuesday night at 7 p.m. before battling the Knights Saturday at 8:30 p.m. as part of a doubleheader with the women's team. ACU defeated both schools last year by a combined score of 182-104.
The break in conference play comes at a critical time for the Wildcats (5-7, 1-5 LSC), which have lost six of seven since the start of December by a narrow margin of 2.7 points per game. This stretch includes three conference defeats that were decided on the final possession and a frustrating 65-59 loss to Cameron last Saturday at Moody Coliseum.
The Wildcats used a second-half 14-4 run to get within a point of the Aggies with three minutes remaining, but missed several key shots during the closing minutes. Cameron, meanwhile, countered with several successful trips to the free-throw line, and with 22 seconds left, Andrew D. Thomas sealed the victory with a 3-point play.
ACU made only nine field goals in the first half against Cameron to trail 27-26 going into the break. And then after battling back to tie the score at 39-39 with fewer than 13 minutes to play, The Wildcats allowed the Aggies to take off on a 13-2 run that took all of 2 minutes and 14 seconds. The Wildcats also were hit with a technical during this span that led to three Cameron points from the charity stripe.
ACU went on to finish the Cameron game with 40 percent shooting (22-55), but during its current slump are only connecting at a 33 percent success rate (42-126). Free throws have been just as hard to come for the Wildcats as they are now down to a .622 percentage (130-209) on the season and .600 vs. LSC opponents (60-100).
By comparison, the Wildcats' first six conference opponents have made over 70 percent of their free-throw attempts (82-116), while the rebounding (33.8-31.0) and turnover (87-85) totals have been largely similar. LSC foes also are shooting over 47 percent against ACU and on 27 fewer attempts.
Individually, senior guard
Eric Lawton has been a model of consistency all season and continues to lead ACU and the LSC in scoring with 17.8 points per game. However, his classmates
Steven Werner and
Elliott Lloyd, each of who are second on the club with 11.3 ppg have experienced a noticeable drop in offensive production during the Wildcats' 1-6 slide.
In his first five games as a Wildcat, Werner averaged 12.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game behind .531 shooting, while Lloyd provided 15.0 ppg with a .433 field goal percentage. But during the last seven games, Werner's scoring average is at 10.3 and Lloyd's at 8.6.
Junior
Cornelius Cammock, who scored a career high 20 vs. the Aggies in his first start at ACU, has picked up some of the slack on offense recently and has lifted his season scoring average to 9.5 ppg. Cammock's .568 field goal percentage ranks fourth in the conference.
