Box Score
ABILENE - Despite going a solid eight minutes without a field goal midway through the second half, the Abilene Christian men's basketball team utilized an 8-0 scoring burst in less than a minute to pull away from Arlington Baptist, 80-66, Tuesday night at Moody Coliseum.
The victory improved ACU's season record to 10-17, while the Patriots fell to 13-11.
The Wildcats led anywhere from eight to 12 points during the early stages of the second half, but went cold after
Julian Edmonson buried a trey that put ACU ahead 63-52 with 10:47 remaining. Fortunately for the home team, Arlington Baptist couldn't completely capitalize as the Patriots ended up scoring a majority of their points from the free-throw line during a 10-3 run that trimmed ACU's lead down to four points at 66-62 and 3:08 to go.
But after Josh Green's layup made it a two-possession game, sophomore
Parker Wentz nailed a jumper 20-seconds later on the Wildcats' ensuing possession and then freshman
Michael Grant forced a turnover on Simeon Brinkley that he turned into a fast-break layup and free throw. Grant's 3-point play pushed the Wildcat lead to nine, and following an
Austin Cooke steal and timeout by the visitors, Wentz sealed the victory with a three-pointer.
Wentz only made two treys tonight, but hit 50 percent of his shots (7-14) and knocked down 8 of 10 free throw attempts in finishing with a game-high 24 points. The 40-minute man also dished out three assists, stole two passes and blocked his first shot of the season. Wentz' last block came during a December of 2012 game in Las Vegas vs. Florida Tech.
Grant also had an awesome night shooting the ball, making 7 of 8 field goal attempts in tying his career high of 17 points.
Edmonson scored 16 points off the bench on 4-of-7 shooting and Cooke contributed 11 to go along with a block and eight rebounds.
Alek Milosvaljevic played a role in three blocks and
Jacob Lancaster had two as the Wildcats tied their season high tonight with nine blocks. The ACU defense also pulled down 23 rebounds, forced 18 turnovers and held the Patriots to 37.0 percent shooting (20-54).
By comparison, ACU's offense shot just a hair under 50 percent at .491 (26-53) despite finishing the first half at .556 (15-27).
After trailing by five points with 5:44 to go in the first half, the Wildcats connected on six of their last eight field goal attempts to go into the halftime break ahead 45-36.
Three free throws by Edmonson cut the Patriot lead to two points at 30-28 and Milosvaljevic tied the score on an easy layup.
Brinkley briefly put his team back ahead by two with a pair of free throws, but Wentz countered with a fast break layup in which he split two defenders in the paint. Grant followed with a mid-court jumper and later banked in another layup that came in between a pair of 3-pointers from Cooke.
Cooke - whose third trey of the half came with five seconds remaining - was 3-of-4 from 3-point range in the first half. In fact, nearly half (7) of the team's 15 first-half field goals were made from beyond the arc.
The Wildcats conclude their three-game homestand Saturday vs. Southwestern Adventist at 7:30 p.m.
