LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- The ACU Wildcats outscored Arkansas-Pine Bluff 18-9 over the final 6:29 of the game Tuesday afternoon as the Wildcats knocked off the Golden Eagles, 69-61, to win the Upper Division championship of the Continental Las Vegas Classic at the Orleans Arena.
The Wildcats' second straight win in Las Vegas pushes their record to 6-6 on the season as they take a break before heading back out on the road after Christmas to take on Grand Canyon in Phoenix on Dec. 28. The Wildcats will begin Southland Conference play on Saturday, Jan. 3, when they host Central Arkansas at 4 p.m. in Moody Coliseum.
Monday's 65-59 win over South Carolina State was ACU's first win over an NCAA Division I opponent away from Moody Coliseum since an 87-79 over Texas-Arlington on Dec. 7, 1993, and the Wildcats kept the momentum going Tuesday, although it wasn't easy.
ACU led 37-25 at halftime and still led 44-33 after a pair of
Parker Wentz free throws with 14:54 to play. That's when UAPB got hot, outscoring the Wildcats 17-7 over the next 8:07 to take a 52-51 lead. The run ended when Tevin Hammond hit a jumper at the 7:39 mark to tie the game at 51-51 and then hit the second of two free throws at the 6:47 mark to give his team a 52-51 lead.
But the Wildcats took over on both ends down the stretch, holding the Golden Lions to 2 for 11 shooting from the field over the final six minutes, collecting 10 rebounds, forcing two turnovers and picking up one block and one steal.
When the Golden Lions went cold, the quartet of seniors
LaDarrien Williams and
Harrison Hawkins, junior
Austin Cooke and freshman
K.J. Maura took over for the Wildcats.
Cooke scored his first points of the game with 6:29 to play when he took an inbounds pass from Maura and scored to give the Wildcats a 53-52 lead, an advantage they would not lose the rest of the way. Williams -- was was voted to the all-tournament team -- then hit a layup with 3:56 to play after Cooke had grabbed an offensive rebound of a Hawkins missed free throw a few seconds earlier.
After a Pine Bluff bucket cut the ACU lead to 55-53, Cooke hit a jumper on a feed from Maura to make it 57-53 with 3:15 to play as the Wildcats continued to make it a two-score game. Then the Wildcats ran away from the Golden Lions over the next few minutes, pushing the lead as many as nine points.
After the Golden Lions had cut the ACU lead to 57-55 with 3:03 to play, Maura pulled down the defensive rebound after a Ghiavonnie Robinson missed layup, and then got an assist to Hawkins for a big 3-pointer that pushed ACU's lead to 60-55 with 1:56 left.
Cooke pulled down a defensive rebound with 1:34 to play that led to a Williams three-point play with 1:11 to play to give ACU a 63-55 lead. The Golden Lions would not get closer than six points the rest of the way as Hawkins went 4 for 4 from the line and Maura 2 for 2 from the stripe down the stretch to help ACU hold off Pine Bluff.
The back-to-back wins for the Wildcats capped a long travel week that saw them play four games in seven days in three cities in three different time zones. And the Wildcats had to re-group in Las Vegas after losing by 39 and 44 points earlier in the week at Loyola-Chicago and Boise State, respectively.
But thanks to 16 points from Wentz -- the junior shooting guard who hit 5 of 6 shots from the field, including 4 of 5 from 3-point range -- 15 from Williams, 12 from Hawkins and a big afternoon from Cooke and Maura, the Wildcats were able to get their record back to .500 after 12 games. And they were able to hoist a tournament championship trophy on the floor after earning two wins at the Orleans Arena.
"This team just fights so hard," an emotional ACU head coachÂ
Joe Golding said after the game. "We've asked a lot of them, playing lots of games against bigger schools. This transition (to NCAA Division I affiliation) has been tough the last couple of years, but these guys have continued to fight and I couldn't be more proud of them. To see them have some success is very special."
Â
