CONWAY, Ark. --
Jalone Friday scored 18 points,
Jaylen Franklin added 16 and
Jaren Lewis recorded a double-double Saturday evening as the ACU Wildcats bounced back from a disappointing loss on Wednesday to knock off Central Arkansas, 80-63, at the Farris Center.
Franklin -- a native of Little Rock, Ark. -- had three highlight-reel dunks in the second half, and Friday also had an alley-oop dunk to seal the Wildcats' 17-point victory in front of a large contingent of Franklin's family and friends. Both Franklin and Friday did most of their damage in the second half as Friday had 16 points and Franklin 12 to lead the way for the Wildcats, who led 38-37 at the break.
But ACU outscored the league's top scoring team 42-26 in the second half, dominating the Bears in the final 20 minutes in a way reminiscent of the way Stephen F. Austin dominated ACU in the second half of last Wednesday's 76-66 win over the Wildcats. In that game, SFA limited ACU to 6 of 22 shooting from the field, turned the Wildcats over 11 times and out-rebounded them 22-11, outscoring ACU 43-23 in the second half.
Saturday afternoon in Arkansas, ACU limited the Bears to 10 of 32 shooting from the field (31.3 percent), including 2 of 13 from 3-point range. The biggest advantage for the Wildcats in the second half came on the glass where they out-rebounded the Bears 25-14 in the final 20 minutes. ACU shot 16 of 29 from the field (3 of 8 from 3-point range) and only turned the ball over five times in the final 20 minutes. ACU ended up out-rebounding the Bears 40-29 in the game and held the Bears -- who entered the game averaging 82.8 points per game -- to their lowest point total of the season.
The Wildcats never trailed in the second half, but UCA cut the lead to 55-53 with 13:17 left in the contest before a jumper by Friday and a layup by
Hayden Farquhar on a nice feed from
Tevin Foster pushed the lead back to 59-53 with 10:39 to play. Franklin hit a driving layup to push it to 61-53 with 9:20 left before Hayden Koval hit a layup to make it 61-55 with 8:36 to play.
From there, ACU outscored the Bears 19-8 over the final 7:53, starting with a back-door alley-oop dunk by Franklin on a feed from Foster. After UCA star Jordan Howard -- who scored 28 points to become UCA's all-time leading scorer -- hit a layup with 5:50 to play to cut the ACU lead to 63-57. But Friday hit a layup before Ricks banked in a huge 3-pointer as the shot clock buzzer sounded to give ACU a 68-57 lead with 4:40 to play.
Franklin then hit another alley-oop dunk on a feed from Ricks with 3:37 left before Lewis hit a pair of free throws with 3:08 left to make it a 72-57 game. Ricks then had his own dunk on a breakaway and ACU led 74-57 with 1:35 left. After a Howard layup, Franklin got loose for a one-handed tomahawk dunk over Koval that essentially sealed the game, pushing the Wildcats' lead to 76-59 with 1:17 to play. Friday added an alley-opp dunk of his own on a feed from Foster to make it 78-61 with 1:15 left in the game.
Just as they did in last Saturday's road win at Northwestern State, all five ACU starters scored in double figures as Foster and Ricks each finished with 11 points. Lewis had 13 points and 11 rebounds to notch his fifth career double-double. The Wildcats also got key contributions off the bench from
Hayden Howell (three points, three rebounds and one block in six minutes), Farquhar (three points, three rebounds, one block and one steal) and
Drake Green (three points and two rebounds).
The win pushes ACU to 13-8 overall and 5-3 in the Southland Conference, while the Bears fall to 10-11 and 4-4. ACU's 13th win equals its win total for the entire 2016-17 season, and the 5-3 league mark keeps the Wildcats in the top half of the league standings as the race nears the halfway mark. ACU will close out the first half of conference play next Wednesday (Jan. 24) at 7 p.m. at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
