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ABILENE - Abilene Christian's women's basketball team continues its season-long seven-game road trip Saturday at UT-San Antonio, a game which was originally scheduled for Dec. 8 until hazardous and icy road conditions prevented the Wildcats from venturing south.
This time, however, the Wildcats (9-5) will be traveling under sunny skies as they look forward to their first-ever meeting with the Roadrunners, which will certainly prepare them for next week's start to the Southland Conference season on Jan. 9 at New Orleans.
Saturday's 4 p.m. game will be broadcast locally by
Grant Boone on
98.1 FM - The Ticket and online via the ACU Sports portal provided by
Stretch Internet's Game Central.
"We spent two straight days getting ready for UTSA (in early December), and after it was postponed, we ended up playing six straight games in just over a week before going into the break," said head coach
Julie Goodenough. "They do a lot of the same things we do. They try and change up their defense, playing zone, a half-court trap, and press a little bit. So we have to be intensely focused on taking take care of the ball and recognizing their defense.
"They're also a very good rebounding team, shoot well from the 3-point line and have two very prominent scorers in the backcourt."
UTSA - which is in its first year as a member of Conference USA - enters the weekend at 8-4 with its most recent results coming at last weekend's Holiday Classic, where the Roadrunners pushed their winning streak to six games after capturing victories over North Dakota State (79-68) and New Mexico State (65-56).
Third-team All-Western Athletic Conference honoree Kamra King leads UTSA in scoring with 15.7 points per game, followed by returners Miki Turner (9.8), Ashley Spaletta (7.1) and Niaga Mitchell-Cole (5.8). Spaletta also is one of two 3-point threats and one of three Roadrunners averaging better than 5.0 rebounds per game along with Mannasha Bell and Tesha Smith.
Overall, UTSA returns seven letterwinners and two starters from last year's team that finished 16-14 overall and 10-8 (fourth place) in the WAC. In the C-USA preseason poll, UTSA was picked to finished tied for 14th in the 16-team league with Florida Atlantic - a team which edged the Wildcats, 67-63, during their trip to Lubbock for the World Vision Challenge.
But after falling to the Owls, the Wildcats rebounded with consecutive clutch victories over Jacksonville (76-72) and the Red Raiders (58-57).
"Looking at the schedule for those couple of weeks, I was concerned with how well we would sustain our focus, but we really played better every single day of the Texas Tech Tournament," said Goodenough. "So I guess we're at our best when we play off fumes and adrenaline. The intensity and focus that was on display that weekend was the best its been this season."
In the win over Jacksonville, sophomore guard
Whitney West made all eight of her free throw attempts, including four in the final 20 seconds. She also buried four 3-pointers, two of which kick started a dramatic 20-9 run that flipped a 47-46 Wildcats' deficit into a 66-56 lead. West led all players that game with 20 points and had two assists.
The following afternoon vs. Texas Tech, Lubbock natives Lizzy and
Suzzy Dimba led the Wildcats to one of their biggest wins in program history. The Dimbas combined to score 25 points and grab 19 rebounds, but it was Lizzy's two free throws with 3.2 seconds left that propelled the Wildcats to a 58-57 win.
Suzzy Dimba had 16 points and 13 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the season in what was ACU's first win over Texas Tech since Nov. 13, 1978, when the Wildcats beat the Red Raiders, 85-67.
Although the Wildcats didn't score in the final 10:40 of the contest, they out-rebounded the Lady Raiders 15-5 during that stretch (45-30 in the game) and didn't allow Tech even a single rebound in the final 5:48 of the contest. The Wildcats also overcame one of their biggest deficits of the season as they trailed by eight points with 10:49 left in the first half.
"That was a big win for the program and me personally," said Goodenough. "I've always been a big fan of Texas Tech - I love that school as well as its football and basketball teams. I got my master's degree from there when Marsha Sharp's team won the national championship, so it was a big deal to take my team in there and win. I got a lot of congratulatory phone calls and texts afterward, and was involved in probably the most tweets of my life."
For their performances in Lubbock, freshmen
Suzzy Dimba and
Alexis Mason each were named to the World Vision Challenge All-Tournament Team.
Suzzy Dimba averaged 13.0 points over the three games with 9.3 rebounds, eight steals, three assists and a block. Mason, meanwhile, averaged 11.0 points and 4.7 rebounds with a block, four steals and three assists. Incredibly, all three games at Texas Tech were decided by four points or less as ACU finished with a +0.3 scoring margin (197-196) and -1.0 rebounding margin (108-11).
Dimba later was recognized as ACU's first-ever Southland Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Week on Dec. 23 after leading the Wildcats to victories over Texas Wesleyan, Jacksonville and Texas Tech. In five games on the week, Dimba averaged 11.6 points and 8.4 rebounds per game to go along with 2.2 steals, 1.4 assists and 1.2 blocks per contest.
As a team, the Wildcats still have the most wins this season of any Southland Conference team with nine and its best winning percentage at .643. ACU also leads the Southland Conference in six statistical categories, including scoring offense (76.1 ppg), scoring margin (+10.8), assists (16.2), steals (10.8) and 3-point field goal defense (.245).
Individually,
Renata Marquez is ranked among the league's top-15 leaders in scoring (12.9), and top-10 in rebounding (7.1), assists (3.8) and steals (2.1). She also is second with 3.9 offensive rebounds per game.
Suzzy Dimba is seventh in rebounding (8.1), fourth in defensive rebounds (5.9), third in blocks (1.2) and, and third with a .425 3-point field goal percentage.
Leading up to ACU's winter break, Marquez eclipsed the 1,000-point threshold for her career with 11 points vs. Jacksonville, and four days earlier, she pulled down the 500th rebound of her career against Texas Wesleyan.
