Men's Basketball | 2/17/2016 3:53:00 PM
Radio (98.1 FM) l Live Audio l Live Stats l WatchHOUSTON – After battling a team-wide flu virus early in the week, a healthier ACU Wildcat men's basketblal team now turns its attention to Houston Baptist and Thursday night's Southland Conference contest at Sharp Gym.
Thursday's game is a rematch of a Feb. 2 game in Abilene that ACU won 79-72 after building as much as a 25-point lead over the Huskies. HBU fought back from that large second-half deficit to cut the ACU lead to 75-72 with less than 30 seconds to play before ACU freshmen
Jaylen Franklin (driving layup) and
Jaren Lewis (two free throws) sealed the victory in the waning moments.
The Wildcats enter Thursday night's contest at 11-14 overall and 6-6 in the Southland, while the Huskies are 15-11 and 9-4 after a 79-78 home win Monday night over Lamar. When ACU beat the HBU on Feb. 2, that loss wa the first of four straight suffered by the Huskies before they stopped the bleeding with the Monday night win over Lamar.
Franklin – one of the favorites in the league for Freshman of the Year honors – missed Monday night's loss 84-71 loss to Sam Houston State while battling the flu. Junior wing
Jovan Crnic scored eight points in the loss, while playing through his own symptoms. Several other Wildcats seemed to be battling the virus throughout the game against the Bearkats as the illness and Sam Houston's solid team performance combined to knock out the Wildcats.
The Wildcats' 11 wins this season is one more than their win total for the 2014-15 season (10-21), and their 6-6 conference mark is two games better than last year's win total (4-14) and equals the number of conference wins the program had in its first two seasons back in the Southland Conference (2-12 in 2013-14 and 4-14 in 2014-15). ACU also has two road wins in conference play this season (at Central Arkansas on Jan. 2 and at Lamar on Feb. 8), doubling the number of road wins it had in the program's first two seasons back in the league (one road win coming in January 2015 at Northwestern State).
With Franklin missing Monday night against Sam Houston State, senior guard
Jalen Little had the best scoring game of his career, pumping in 19 points, including hitting a career-best four 3-pointers, to lead ACU. Freshman forward
Jaren Lewis came off the bench to record his first career double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds, and sophomore guard
Isaiah Tripp tied his career-high with 12 points, all of them coming on a career-best four 3-pointers.
ACU hit 12 3-pointers in the loss to Sam Houston State, its second-best output of the season behind the 14 3-pointers the Wildcats hit in a 108-100 double-overtime loss at Colorado State on Nov. 24.
