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ABILENE, Texas - Abilene Christian's women's basketball team looks to extend its home unbeaten streak this week against Southland Conference rivals Oral Roberts and Central Arkansas. The Wildcats are meeting the Golden Eagles and Sugar Bears for the first time in school history.
Both games will be broadcast live in Abilene on
98.1 FM - The Ticket and via the ACU Sports portal provided by
Stretch Internet's Game Central. ACU's game vs. ORU is scheduled to tip at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, while its game against UCA will start at 1 p.m. Saturday.
The Wildcats (11-6) are off to a 2-0 start in league play after following up a 88-44 pummeling of New Orleans with a forfeit victory at Southeastern Louisiana. The Lions were asked to forfeit their game vs. the Wildcats in order to remain in compliance with NCAA rules related to not playing more than four non-Division I opponents in a season.
In New Orleans last Thursday night, ACU shot an impressive .552 (32-58) from the field against the Privateers, which was its second-highest percentage of the season (.557 vs. Angelo State), while simultaneously holding UNO to opponent season low of .228 (13-57). ACU also shot well over 50 percent in a win over Texas A&M-Commerce (.531).
Sophomore guard
Whitney West totaled 18 points for the second straight game in leading all Wildcat scorers at UNO and tied a personal record with seven field goals made. Senior
Renata Marquez, meanwhile, scored 17 points and registered a personal record and team season high eight steals. Additional single-game highs included freshman
Lizzy Dimba pulling down a career high 11 rebounds and
Brianne Jolivet scoring a personal best nine points off the bench.
Marquez' efforts in The Big Easy, which included five assists, kept her among the Southland's top-15 leaders in several categories, including scoring (13.4), rebounding (6.9), offensive rebounds (3.4) assists (3.6) and steals (2.4). The team also has the most wins of any Southland team with 11, and its best winning percentage of .647, while maintaining a No. 1 ranking in scoring offense (75.8 ppg), scoring margin (+11.9), assists (15.9), steals (10.9), field-goal percentage (.426) 3-pointers made (9.7) and 3-point field goal defense (.239).
Marquez' five-assist game at New Orleans was her second of the season and fifth of her distinguished career as the team finished with 20 or more assists for the sixth time this season. In fact, the Wildcats have the two highest single-game assist totals in the Southland this year with 30 vs. Northwood and 29 vs. Texas Lutheran.
ACU's Thursday game vs. Oral Roberts could easily be its first and last as the Golden Eagles recently announced they would be returning to The Summit League in all sports, beginning July 1, 2014. ORU was part of the Summit League for 15 seasons before joining the Southland for just two seasons of competition.
The Golden Eagles went 18-13 overall last season and won the league's regular season and tournament championship behind a conference mark of 15-5, but they're off to a uncharacteristic 3-10 start this season. However, a majority of Oral Roberts' losses have come against midwestern powers such as Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri and Nebraska - a schedule that's more than likely prepared them for the grind of conference play.
So far, ORU has won two of three Southland games as a loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi was sandwiched in between double-digit wins over Houston Baptist and Central Arkansas. Christian Key (12.6) and Dorottya Balla (11.2) are ORU's leading scorers and preseason all-SLC selection Sarah Shelton (8.6) is their leading rebounder.
The Golden Eagles return two starters and three letterwinners from last season's club, which was picked second in both preseason Southland Conference polls behind Stephen F. Austin.
Central Arkansas begins the week at 8-6 overall and 2-1 vs. the Southland, and will first play at Incarnate Word Thursday night before heading north to Abilene.
Courtney Duever is her team's leading scorer and rebounder this season with 13.4 points and 8.6 boards per game.
