ABILENE – Abilene Christian's toughest stretch of the 2012-13 season continues this week with a pair of road games Wednesday and Saturday at first-place Midwestern State and third-place Cameron. The Mustangs and Aggies are a combined 16-1 on their home courts this season.
Both games will be carried live on AM 1280 with
Grant Boone handling the play-by-play calls from Wichita Falls (7:30 p.m.) and Lawton, Okla. (4 p.m.).
The Wildcats once again begin their week on the outside of the postseason picture, but at 11-11 overall and 5-9 against the conference, they are only 1.0 game out of eighth place and 2.0 behind fifth place Eastern New Mexico (7-7). So, while there's still hope for ACU, time is quickly running out with only four regular season games left on its schedule – three of which are against the top-three teams in the LSC: MSU, Cameron and Incarnate Word.
The Mustangs (16-5, 12-2 LSC) are currently 3.0 games up on the Cardinals (8-4) and Aggies (9-5) and can trim their magic number to one should they complete their season sweeps this week of ACU and Angelo State. The Aggies are percentage points behind UIW for second place and 2.0 games ahead of Tarleton State (7-5) in the win column for third place.
Midwestern State beat the Wildcats, 72-71, at Moody Coliseum earlier this year on a fast-break layup by Cam Adderly with 18 seconds remaining, giving the Mustangs their ninth-straight win over ACU in their series. The Wildcats would receive one last look at the basket following Adderly's eventual game-winner, but Monzaigo Williams blocked
Eric Lawton's desperation 3-pointer in the corner, and then with .03 seconds remaining,
Desmond Woodberry's in-bound pass was swatted away in the paint.
This decision also marked the second-straight time MSU beat the Wildcats at Moody by just one single point. The Mustangs won their 2011-12 game in Abilene, 79-78, on a technical free throw by Michael Loyd with 0.17 seconds left in regulation.
The Wildcats have not defeated the Mustangs since the end of the 2008 season and trail the all-time series, 55-29.
Six of ACU's nine conference losses this season have come by six points or less, and one of those was its 65-59 defeat to Cameron at Moody on Jan. 5. On this night, the Wildcats came within a point of erasing an 11-point deficit in the second half, but the Cameron players made several free throws down the stretch while holding ACU without a basket for the better part of two minutes.
A layup from
Elliott Lloyd snapped ACU's scoring drought with 30 seconds left to make it a three-point game at 69-52, but on the follow-up possession, the Wildcats couldn't get a foul on Cameron until after Andrew Thomas banked in a running layup.
ACU went on to miss both its shots inside the final 22 seconds and Cameron ran out the clock after grabbing its 33rd rebound with six ticks remaining.
The victory was Cameron's third straight in the series, improving their all-time record vs. ACU to 22-16. The Wildcats last win in Lawton took place in January of 2011.
ACU (72.0), MSU (72.0) and Cameron (70.1) rank third through fifth respectively within the league in scoring offense and all are within the middle of the pack in terms of scoring defense. The Mustangs are allowing 63.2 points per game to rank third, while the Wildcats are sixth with 67.4 points allowed.
The Wildcats also are among the tops in the league in shooting (.469) and rebounding (+6.1), but have struggled all season long at the free-throw line (9th, .628) and in turnover margin (-0.95).
Midwestern State leads the LSC with 4.4 blocked shots, plus a +8.8 scoring margin and +10.6 rebounding margin. The Mustangs also are tied for first with Kingsville with a 39.8 field goal percent defense.
Cameron ranks fourth to sixth in most LSC categories, but is first with an assist/turnover ratio of 1.2 and second only to Eastern New Mexico with 7.7 3-point field goals made per game.
