ABILENE – Longtime followers of ACU men's basketball would be hard-pressed to find a more significant pair of victories for the program in the last 20 years than the two they just racked up over the last four days in Southland Conference play.
When the buzzer sounded on last Saturday's 72-60 loss at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, the Wildcats found themselves 8-12 overall, 2-7 in the Southland Conference and in last place in the league. Four days later, however, ACU knocked off league co-leader New Orleans, 70-69, in overtime in Moody Coliseum.
But Saturday, the Wildcats did something that not many outside their locker room gave them much of a chance to do and that's knock off the league's hottest team and pre-season favorite, Sam Houston State. The Wildcats – who had lost all five games to the Bearkats since re-entering the Southland Conference in 2013-14 – stayed in the game early, took an eight-point lead at halftime, withstood a couple of second-half haymakers, made some huge plays down the stretch and nailed down a 71-64 win at the free throw line.
The win for the Wildcats was their first over the Bearkats since a 73-60 win in the 1985 Lone Star Conference Post-Season Tournament and their first over Sam Houston State in Abilene since a 75-70 win in the 1983-84 season.
ACU is now 10-12 on the season and 4-7 in the Southland, while the Bearkats fall to 17-8 and 8-3, and the Wildcats' win snapped Sam Houston State's eight-game winning streak. Every player on the Wildcats' roster played and eight of them scored, led by 19 from sophomore guard
Jaylen Franklin, who looked like the 2015-16 version of himself, driving into the paint relentlessly and finishing with 19 points and hitting 7 of 11 free throws.
The Wildcats also got 14 points and 10 rebounds from
Jaren Lewis, 13 huge points off the bench from
Hayden Farquhar – 12 coming on a career-best four 3-pointers – and 10 from
Isaiah Tripp. Lewis and Tripp were both 8 of 8 from the free throw line as the team that entered the game as, statistically, the worst free throw shooting team in the league (64.2 percent) hit 84.4 percent from the line in the game (27 of 32). Meanwhile, Sam Houston hit just 5 of its first 16 attempts and finished 14 of 26 at the line.
For all of that, the game got interesting halfway through the second half when the Bearkats tied the game, 40-40, on a jumper by Jovante' Spivey. But ACU sophomore
Jaren Lewis gave the Wildcats the lead back when he converted a three-point play with 10:05 to play to give his team a 43-30 advantage. That was Lewis's first field goal of the game, and came back down on ACU's next possession and hit a pair of free throws to give the Wildcats a 45-40 lead.
After a Franklin layup, Lewis hit a layup off an assist by Tripp to give the Wildcats a 49-40 lead with 8:44 to play, forcing a Sam Houston State timeout. He picked up a steal out of the timeout and hit a pair of free throws to extend ACU's run to 11-0 and its lead to 51-40 with 8:23 to play in the game.
Sam Houston battled back, cutting the ACU lead to 57-50 with 4:04 left before Farquhar hit a huge 3-pointer to give his team a 60-50 lead with 2:58 to play. But the Bearkats refused to die, ripping off an 11-5 run to cut the ACU lead to 65-61 with 30 seconds left after a 3-pointer from Paul Baxter.
But Tripp hit a pair of free throws with 33 seconds left before hitting two more with 23 seconds left to extend ACU's lead to 69-61. After a missed 3-pointer by Dakarai Henderson gave the ball back to the Wildcats, Lewis inbounded the ball deep to Franklin, who hit a layup with 10 seconds left to put ACU up 71-61, sealing the victory.
Key Stats
• The Wildcats entered the game 11th in the 13-team Southland Conference in rebounding margin (minus-5.1) on the season. The Wildcats, however, battled the Bearkats to a 31-31 draw on the boards.
• After hitting just 8 of 24 shots from the field in the first half, the Wildcats hit 11 of 18 from the field (61.1 percent) in the final 20 minutes.
•
Jaylen Franklin had five more assists in Saturday night's win over Sam Houston to give him 36 assists in the Wildcats' last six games (6.0 per game). ACU is 3-3 in those six games.
• The Wildcats entered the game averaging 3.0 blocked shots per game (eighth in the league), but finished the night with five against the Bearkats, led by three from
Jalone Friday.
• Friday is the team's second-leading scorer (14.1 ppg), but he scored just two points on two free throws and had two rebounds in the game.
Notable
• The Wildcats are now 4-7 on the season, and all four of their wins are over the top four teams in the league standings: Sam Houston State, New Orleans, Stephen F. Austin and Lamar.
Quotable
"Jaylen (Franklin) did a great job all night getting the basketball to shooters where we were ready to shoot the ball. When you've got five guys on the floor who can shoot the ball, it makes it pretty tough to defend." —
ACU sophomore forward Hayden Farquhar
"This win was about our team. Our guys never stopped believing in the process, despite the start we had to conference play. We're doing a lot of things with our guys and doing some different things, and they're coming together. This team is going to be a lot of fun to watch over the next few years, and this is just the beginning." —
ACU head coach Joe Golding
Up Next
The Wildcats are back in action Thursday (Feb. 9) at 7 p.m. when they take on Central Arkansas (6-18, 5-6) in Conway, Ark. The Bears beat ACU, 81-76, in Abilene on Jan. 5. The game can be heard on 98.1 FM The Ticket (98theticket.com).
