First-place Colonels in town for key matchup with ACU

ABILENE – One of the hallmarks of this year's ACU squad has been its ability to get up off the mat after a tough loss and rebound with a quality effort in its next game.

That tenacity will be put to perhaps its toughest test of the season tonight when the Wildcats host Nicholls in one of severak key games on the Southland Conference men's schedule over the next two days.

Aside from the ACU-Nicholls contest, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi is at Sam Houston State and Central Arkansas is in Houston for a matchup against Houston Baptist. Also on the docket: Lamar is at Northwestern State and Southeastern Louisiana is at Incarnate Word. Tomorrow night, Stephen F. Austin will try to rebound from a 22-point road loss at Lamar by taking on McNeese in Lake Charles, La. Each of those games involves a team or teams trying to make a push to get into the conference's postseason tournament in Katy.

The game in Abilene, though, is the only one that features both teams currently sitting among the top eight in the league standings. Nicholls moved into sole possession of first place in the Southland last Saturday with a dominant 81-64 win over New Orleans. ACU, meanwhile, dropped into a sixth-place tie after an 84-77 loss at Sam Houston State. ACU has only lost consecutive games once this season, and will try to avoid a second sraight loss and a 6-6 league mark tonight against the Colonels.

Nicholls enters the game with a powerful 1-2 scoring pucnh in Roddy Peters (19.2 points per game) and Tevon Saddler (16.2 ppg). The club also scores a league-best 84.7 ppg and is second in the league in 3-point field goal percentage (35.9 percent).

ACU is led by the quartet of Jalone Friday (14.3 ppg), Jaren Lewis (13.0 ppg), Tevin Foster (!2.8 ppg) and Jaylen Franklin (10.3 ppg). Both Franklin (1,014 career points) and Lewis (1,001 career points) surpassed 1,000 career points in the loss at Sam Houston State.