Women's Basketball | 3/1/2016 7:06:00 PM
Game Notes
Live Stats | Video | Audio ABILENE – Abilene Christian's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) has been collecting socks for Abilene's homeless through its 16 varsity men's and women's teams for the past week, and on Wednesday night the entire Big Country community is asked to pitch in a few new pairs leading up to the 7 p.m. women's basketball game vs. Incarnate Word.
All sizes and styles of socks are accepted – children, adult, white and decorative – and will be given to Love and Care Ministries, a local outreach group that tends to the needs of the homeless community in Abilene and neighboring Merkel.
The socks collected by the Wildcat student-athletes will be left at center court during a pregame public service announcement, and head coach
Julie Goodenough's staff will coach without wearing socks in order to raise awareness for homeless issues in and around the Key City
Those who can't make it to the game are welcome to listen on Abilene's 98.1 FM – The Ticket or watch it via the 'Live Video' links on ACUSports.com. 'The Voice of the Wildcats'
Grant Boone will provide the play-by-play as ACU looks to improve on its 24-3 overall record and 15-1 first-place mark against the Southland Conference.
The Wildcats enter their final week of the regular season on a six-game winning streak after defeating New Orleans at Moody Coliseum, 80-70, Saturday afternoon to push its home-winning streak to 15 games. Four Wildcats reached double figures in scoring led by
Alexis Mason's 21 points, and the team as a whole shot better than 50 percent (.569, 29-51) for the seventh time this season: Wayland Baptist, Eastern Washington, Stephen F. Austin, Incarnate Word, Lamar, New Orleans.
Mason's offensive output vs. the Privateers combined with her 23-point night a week ago at Houston Baptist earned her a fourth Southland Conference Player of the Week Award, giving the Wildcats six on the season.
Mason shot 73.7 percent from the floor last week (14-of-19) vs. HBU and UNO and made 72.7 percent of her free throws (8-11) and 3-pointers (8-11). She also averaged 4.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 3.5 steals per game to remain ranked high among the league leaders.
Mason leads the Southland in conference scoring with 20.3 ppg as of Tuesday evening, and is ranked among its top-10 leader in steals (2.0), field goal (.472) and 3-point field goal percentage (.385). She additionally is ranked among the top-20 in rebounding (5.9) and assists (2.4).
Mason has scored at least 12 points in each of her 16 Southland games and this past week's scoring totals gave her nine games with 20 or more points.
ACU and Incarnate Word are meeting for the second time this season and for the 26th time in series history, which the Wildcats lead 17-8 following their 86-71 win on Jan. 23 at the McDermott Convocation Center. The Wildcats shot .549 vs. the Cardinals with Mason leading all scorers with 26 points.
Lizzy Dimba, meanwhile, recorded her fourth double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Dimba won't get to duplicate that effort again as she continues to recover from her season-ending injury. However, she's since been serving as the team's biggest cheerleader and the Wildcats' have gone 4-0 without her in the starting lineup. The four remaining starters all are averaging 11.0 or more points per game in her absence and senior guard
Paris Webb has seen her playing time rise drastically, giving the Wildcats an average of 32.0 minutes per game with 16 rebounds and 14 assists.
Mason has been averaging 20.0 points per game on 57.1 shooting during this same stretch of games, and defensively the Wildcats are getting 8.5 and 7.3 rebounds per game from
Sydney Shelstead and
Suzzy Dimba.
Getting off to a fast start offensively also has helped the Wildcats as they move forward with a nine-woman rotation. ACU has outscored its last four opponents in the first quarter by an average of 21.0 to 12.8, and is shooting just under 40 percent from the 3-point arc (.453 from the field).
