Wildcats visit Pepperdine seeking 8-0 start to season

ACU at Pepperdine

When: Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018
Time: 5 p.m. PT (7 p.m. CT)
Where: Firestone Fieldhouse (Malibu, Calif.)
Records: Abilene Christian 7-0; Pepperdine 4-2
Series: Series tied 1-1
Last Game: ACU 93, Pepperdine 89 (Dec. 3, 1984; Abilene, Texas)
Streak: ACU won the last meeting
Last ACU win: ACU 93, Pepperdine 89 (Dec. 3, 1984; Abilene, Texas)
Last HPU win: Pepperdine 85, ACU 79 (Dec. 2, 1983 / Malibu, Calif.)
Radio: 98.1 FM (98theticket.com)
Watch: wccsports.com
Live Stats: SIDEARM

Saturday's Game
The Wildcats are back in California for the second straight weekend, this time in Southern California after spending Thanksgiving weekend playing in the Tigers Thanksgiving Classic at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, in Northern California. Saturday night's game at Pepperdine is the first meeting between the sister Church of Christ schools since a December 1984 game at Moody Coliseum in Abilene.
 
That game was won by the Wildcats of head coach Mike Martin, 93-89, on Dec. 3, 1984, as they topped Pepperdine and head coach Jim Harrick. The Wildcats were in their fourth year as a member of NCAA Division II, while that Waves team would go on to finish 23-9, win the West Coast Conference championship and reach the NCAA Tournament.
 
The Wildcats are 10-5 all-time against sister Church of Christi schools: 5-4 vs. Lipscomb, 1-1 vs. Pepperdine and 2-0 vs. both Harding and York (Neb.).
 
Scouting the Wildcats

• The Wildcats knocked off non-Division I opponent Howard Payne (Texas), 90-53, Tuesday night in Abilene to improve to 7-0 on the season, the program's best start since the 1998-99 team started 11-0 on its way to a 20-win season and a berth in the NCAA Division II national tournament.
 
• Only three other teams in ACU's 97-plus year history of men's basketball have started a season with at least seven straight wins: 1979-80 (9-0 start on the way to a 27-5 finish and a berth in the NAIA national tournament); 1997-98 (school-best 13-0 start on its way to a 22-6 finish), and the 1998-98 team that finished 21-8 after the 11-0 start.
 
• For the first time in program history, ACU received votes (21) in Monday's collegeinsider.com Mid-Major poll. Gonzaga – the nation's top-ranked team and fellow West Coast Conference member with two ACU opponent in Pacific and Pepperdine – is the No. 1 team in the Mid-Major poll with Buffalo (5-0), Belmont (5-0), Furman (7-0) and UNC-Greensboro (6-1) rounding out the top five. Lipscomb – which beat ACU twice last season and then beat SMU and TCU last week in Texas – is ranked eighth in the poll. The only other Southland Conference school to receive votes in the Mid-Major poll this week was Stephen F. Austin (4-1), which received 25 votes.

• The NCAA released its first NET rankings on Monday (Nov. 26) and Ohio State was the top-ranked team in the nation according to those rankings. The NET rankings have taken the place of the old RPI system to help select teams for at-large bids and seed teams for the NCAA Tournament in March. ACU was ranked 55^th in the country in Monday's initial ranking and moved up to 54^th after the completion of Monday night's games.
 
• Senior forward Jaren Lewis – who was the tournament MVP last weekend at the Tigers Thanksgiving Classic hosted by the University of the Pacific – was voted the Southland Conference Player of the Week on Monday for the second time in the first three weeks of the season. Lewis averaged 15.3 points and 7.0 rebounds per game to help ACU beat Elon (N.C.), Pacific and UC-Riverside to win the tournament title.
 
• Since ACU re-joined the Southland Conference in 2013-14 and its players became eligible for conference weekly and postseason honors in 2014-15, Lewis is the only Wildcat player to earn men's basketball Player of the Week honors, and he's now been honored three times. He won it the first time Feb. 12, 2018, and then won it again two weeks ago (Nov. 12).
 
• Junior center Jalone Friday was named to the all-tournament team at Pacific after averaging 15.0 points and 6.7 rebounds per contest in the three wins. Friday had a game-high 22 points in the win over Pacific and recorded his seventh career double-double in the win over UC-Riverside, finishing the game with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
 
• Senior point guard Jaylen Franklin – who buried a buzzer-beating, game-winning jumper in the 73-71 win over Pacific last Friday night – is playing the best basketball of his Wildcat career. Franklin is averaging just 7.9 points per game, but has dished out 35 assists (5.0 per game) and committed just five turnovers (0.7 per game), giving him an assist-to-turnover ratio of 7.0, which leads the Southland and is fifth-best in Division I basketball. Franklin is also tied for first in the league in assists per game (5.0) and third in steals per game (1.86).
 
• The Wildcats swept their three games at last weekend's Tigers Thanksgiving Classic (hosted by the University of the Pacific) with wins over Elon (72-56), a thriller over the hosts from Pacific (73-71 on a buzzer-beating jumper by Jaylen Franklin) and UC-Riverside (60-48 in the Wildcats' first win over the Highlanders after three losses).
 
• The Wildcats limited UC-Riverside to just 48 points in the win over the Highlanders, the first time in almost 70 years the Wildcats have limited an NCAA Division I opponent to less than 50 points in a game. The last time ACU limited a Division I opponent to less than 50 points in a game came in a 43-40 loss to North Texas in December 1950.
 
• In six games this season, the Wildcats' largest deficit is six points against Pacific last Friday (Nov. 23). ACU has trailed by three against both Denver (Nov. 15) and UC-Riverside (Nov. 24), two points against Arlington Baptist (Nov. 6) and one point against Elon (Nov. 22). ACU never trailed in its Nov. 9 win over Arkansas State.
 
• In their seven games so far this season (280 minutes of game time), ACU has led for 246 minutes, 55 seconds (246:55) of game time and has only trailed or been tied for 33:05. Pacific has held a leader longer than any other ACU opponent this season, having led the Wildcats for 8 minutes on Nov. 23 in ACU's eventual 73-71 victory.
 
• Since the Wildcats moved to NCAA Division I affiliation prior to the start of the 2013-14 season, the Wildcats are 15-33 in non-conference Division I contests, including 6-26 in true road contests (12-28 when including a 6-2 record in neutral-site games). The Wildcats, however, are 9-6 in their last 15 non-conference Division I games dating back to the start of the 2017-18 season (5-0 this season), including 6-4 on the road. 
 
• Since moving to the NCAA Division I level, the Wildcats are 3-3 in the state of California with losses at California-Riverside (December 2014), Sacramento State (December 2016) and San Francisco (December 2016) and wins last weekend over Elon (N.C.), Pacific and UC-Riverside at the Tigers Thanksgiving Classic in Stockton, California.
 
• In their 97-plus years of collegiate basketball, the Wildcats have only played 16 games against teams from the state of California and are 8-8 in those games with wins over Cal State-Northridge, Pepperdine, Sacramento State, Cal State-Chico, Cal State-East Bay, Biola, Pacific and UC-Riverside.
 
• Lewis has recorded 15 double-doubles in his career, including one this season, an 18-point, 15-rebound tour de force against Arkansas State as part of a 94-73 ACU win on Nov. 9. The Wildcats are 7-8 in games in which Lewis records a double-double.
 
• The Wildcats' win at Denver on Nov. 15 was the 90^th in head coach Joe Golding's eighth season as the ACU head coach. ACU is 23-16 in its last 39 games.