Wildcats to take on #11 Texas Tech on Throwback Night

ACU at Texas Tech

When: Saturday, Dec. 15, 2018
Time: 6 p.m.
Where: Lubbock Municipal Coliseum (Lubbock, Texas)
Records: Abilene Christian 9-1; #11 Texas Tech 9-0
Series: Texas Tech leads 24-12
Last Game: Texas Tech 74, ACU 47 (Dec. 22, 2017 / Lubbock)
Streak: Texas Tech has won 11 straight
Last ACU win: ACU 32, Texas Tech 22 (Jan. 11, 1938 / Lubbock)
Last Texas Tech win: Texas Tech 74, ACU 47 (Dec. 22, 2017 / Lubbock)
Radio: 98.1 FM (98theticket.com)
Watch: texastech.com
Live Stats: SIDEARM
Game Notes: ACU I Texas Tech

Saturday Night's Game
Saturday night's game is the Red Raiders' annual Throwback Game and will be the final game ever played at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, which is where Tech played from 1956-99 before the opening of the United Supermarkets Arena on campus. The building will be demolished in the spring to make way for additional Tech athletics facilities.

ACU has lost 11 straight games to the Red Raiders in a series that dates back to the 1925-26 season. ACU's last win over the Red Raiders was a 32-22 victory on Jan. 11, 1938, in Lubbock. The 11th-ranked Red Raiders are the highest-ranked team ACU has ever played.

Texas Tech played in the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum for 43 years with the first basketball game on Dec. 3, 1956 against Kansas State. The first Tech win came with a 66-62 victory over Tulsa on Dec. 10, 1956 and the Red Raiders completed their first season in the Coliseum on a three-game home winning streak against Arizona, West Texas A&M and New Mexico State. Before last season's Throwback Game, the previous game to be played at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum was on Feb. 24, 1999 against Colorado. Texas Tech earned a 73-53 win over Rice in last year's game at the Coliseum on Dec. 16, 2017.

Scouting the Wildcats
• ACU has three players averaging in double figures, led by senior forward Jaren Lewis at 15.2 points per game and Jalone Friday adding 13 and Payten Ricks at 12 points per game. Lewis also leads the team with 5.5 rebounds, while Jaylen Franks has 53 assists (5.3 APG) and Payten Ricks is at 2.5 steals (25 total).

• ACU has forced 175 turnovers and own a plus-5.6 margin and will come into Lubbock shooting 52.4 percent as a team, which is second in Division I basketball. The Wildcats are at 43.5 percent on 3-pointers and are averaging 80.1 points per game. Texas Tech is limiting opponents to 51.6 points per game this season and has not allowed over 67 points per game. The Red Raiders are No. 1 in the country in field goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to hit just 32.6 percent of their shots from the field.

• Since re-joining the Southland Conference and moving to NCAA Division I affiliation prior to the 2013-14 season, the Wildcats are 0-7 against Power 5 opponents: 0-2 vs. TCU of the Big 12 and 0-1 against Maryland, Iowa and Nebraska of the Big 10 and 0-1 against both Texas Tech and Oklahoma of the Big 12.

 • For the first time in program history, ACU received votes (21) in the Nov. 26 collegeinsider.com Mid-Major poll. … The Wildcats are ranked 143 in the latest NET Daily Rankings.
 
• Jaren Lewis – who was the tournament MVP at the Tigers Thanksgiving Classic hosted by the University of the Pacific – was voted the Southland Conference Player of the Week twice in the first three weeks of the season.
 
• 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. He was voted the College Sports Madness Southland Conference Player of the Week after leading the Wildcats to a pair of victories last week.
 
• Senior point guard Jaylen Franklin – who buried a buzzer-beating, game-winning jumper in the 73-71 win over Pacific – is playing the best basketball of his Wildcat career. Franklin is averaging 8.5 points per game, but has dished out 53 assists (5.3per game) and committed just 13 turnovers (1.3 per game), giving him an assist-to-turnover ratio of 4.1, which leads the Southland and is 17th in Division I basketball. Franklin is also second in the league in assists per game and eighth in steals per game (1.67).
 
• The Wildcats are 9-1 on the season and off to the program's best start at the NCAA Division I level (since the 2013-14 season) and off to the program's best start overall since the 1998-99 team started 11-0 on its way to a 20-win season and a spot in the NCAA Division II national tournament.
 
• 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.
 
• 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 was the 90th in head coach Joe Golding's eighth season as the ACU head coach.