NEW ORLEANS – The ACU Wildcats shot just 39 percent from the floor Saturday night and never led as the New Orleans Privateers rolled to a 75-55 win over the Wildcats in Southland Conference men's basketball action at Lakefront Arena.
The loss is the 12th straight for the Wildcats, who are now 9-19 on the season and 3-12 in the Southland. The Privateers, meanwhile, are now 9-15 and 5-10. ACU will play its final home game of the season Tuesday at 7 p.m. when it hosts Houston Baptist at Moody Coliseum in the final home appearance for
LaDarrien Williams,
Harrison Hawkins, Aleksander Milosavljevic and
David Hanson.
The Wildcats will then wrap up the 2014-15 season with a two-game road trip to Incarnate Word (Thursday) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (Saturday).
New Orleans – which entered the game shooting just 43 percent from the floor – blistered the nets by hitting 26 of 45 shots from the field (57.8 percent), including 9 of 12 from 3-point range (9 of 12). The Wildcats never led in the game and trailed 16-6 barely six minutes into the contest and didn't get closer than four points the rest of the way.
ACU closed the UNO lead to 21-17 on a
Parker Wentz layup with 8:33 left in the first half. But the Privateers outscored the Wildcats 17-3 over the final 6:50 of the first half to carry a 38-20 lead into halftime. The Wildcats never got closer than 13 points in the second half.
Austin Cooke continued his solid play in conference games by scoring 11 points and pulling down six rebounds for the Wildcats, while
Parker Wentz had 11 points on 4 of 10 shooting, including 3 of 5 from 3-point range. Freshmen
Drake Green and
Isaiah Tripp went for nine and seven points, respectively, off the bench.
New Orleans had four players score in double figures, led by Kevin Brown's 19 points. Terrance Syon had 12 points, while Nate Frye had 11 and Kevin Hill 10.
