Men's Basketball | 12/4/2015 11:29:00 PM
LINCOLN, Neb. – The ACU Wildcats have their toughest task of the season in front of them Saturday afternoon in the nation's Heartland as they try to stop a mini two-game losing sgtreak as they take on the quickly rising Nebraska Cornhuskers at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
The Wildcats and Cornhuskers will tip off at 1 p.m. Saturday with the Wildcat pre-game show set to start at 12:45 p.m. on 98.1 FM The Ticket in Abilene. The game can also be heard on www.the98x.com, and it can be viewed on the
Big Ten 2 Go Network.
The game will be played at the state-of-the-art Pinnacle Bank Arena which the Cornhuskers routinely pack for home games. They ranked in the top 10 in the country in average attendance last season, and their smallest crowd this season in five home games was a crowd of 15,447 for a Nov. 19 game against Delaware. They are averaging 15,523 fans per games this season through those five home games.
The Wildcats are 3-4 on the season after Thursday night's 86-75 home loss against the Wildcats of New Hampshire. The Wildcats have lost four of their last five with all of the losses coming against NCAA Division I teams (the win was also over Division I Florida A&M).
The Cornhuskers – in their fourth season under head coach Tim Miles – are 5-3 on the season and are coming off a 77-72 overtime loss against No. 21 Miami on Dec. 1 (Tuesday) at home. Forward Shavon Shields had a game-high 28 points in the loss for the Huskers as he hit 11 of 25 shots from the field.
ACU enters Saturday's game coming off a mixed performance against New Hampshire at Moody Coliseum. The Wildcats played well offensively – hitting 49 percent of their shots from the field including better than 50 percent from 3-point range – but coiuldn't get stops against New Hampshire when they needed them.
New Hampshire used a 17-5 run early in the second half to turn a four-point halftime lead into a 16-point bulge with 14 minutes left in the game. ACU wasn't able to get the lead below 11 points the rest of the way.
Freshman point guard
Jaylen Franklin led the Wildcats with a career-high 22 points against New Hampshire, while freshman forward
Hayden Farquhar had 17 points off the bench and freshman forward
Jaren Lewis had nine points and nine rebounds off the bench.
Franklin leads the Wildcats in scoring at 13.7 points per game, and has also already gone to the free throw line 42 times in seven games (hitting 28 of those shots), and is on pace to shoot better than 180 free throws on the season. Senior guard
Parker Wentz – who is second on the team in scoring at 10.7 ppg – led the Wildcats with 94 free throw attempts (80 makes) in 2014-15.
The Wildcats will play Saturday without senior point guard
Jalen Little, who left Thursday's game against New Hampshire with 7:08 to play after suffering a knee injury. He was to be evaluated Friday in Abilene and didn't make the trip to Lincoln.
Shields leads the Huskers in scoring at 15.3 ppg, while Andrew White III – a transfer from Kansas – is second at 14.6 ppg. The Cornhuskers – who have already beaten ACU's Southland Conference rival Southeastern Louisiana 92-65 earlier this season – are allowing just 65.0 ppg, thanks to a defense that is allowing opponents to shoot just 38.5 percent from the field (172 for 447), including a meager 28.9 percent from 3-point range (41 for 142).
The Cornhuskers have also been solid on the glass, outrebounding their opponents by almost eight rebounds per game (41.1-33.6), and are led by Shields' 5.3 rpg. ACU, meanwhile, is being slightly out-rebounded per game (36.1-35.4), and is led in the category by Lewis, who ranks among the top 10 in the Southland Conference at 6.9 rpg.
