Wildcats host Demons looking for 5-1 league start

Northwestern State at ACU

When: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019
Time: 6 p.m.
Where: Moody Coliseum (Abilene, Texas)
Records: Northwestern State 7-10, 2-2; ACU 15-3, 4-1
Series: ACU leads 4-1
Last Game: ACU 69, Northwestern State 58 (Jan. 13, 2018 / Natchitoches, Louisiana)
Streak: ACU, w4
Last ACU win: ACU 69, Northwestern State 58 (Jan. 13, 2018 / Natchitoches, Louisiana)
Last NWST win: Northwestern State 84, ACU 66 (Feb. 1, 2014 / Natchitoches, Louisiana)
Radio: 98.1 FM (98theticket.com)
Watch: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/abilene/
Live Stats: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=239443

ABILENE, Texas – The ACU Wildcats are back home Saturday night to host Northwestern State with a chance to win four straight Southland Conference games for the first time since re-joining the league prior to the 2013-14 season.

The Wildcats have won four straight games over the Demons, including last season's 69-58 win in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

At 4-1 in the league, the Wildcats are tied with New Orleans for second in the league, one-half game behind Sam Houston State, which beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday to improve to 4-0 in the conference. ACU has the most overall wins in the league by a wide margin and is one of only two teams with double-digit wins on the season (defending league co-champion Nicholls is the other with 10 wins).

HEADLINER
• The Wildcats are 15-3 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.

100 WINS FOR GOLDING
• Last Wednesday's 73-72 win at McNeese was the 100th in the career of head coach Joe Golding, who is in his eighth season as the Wildcats' leader. Golding's teams were 24-30 in ACU's final two seasons at the NCAA Division II level (12-16 in 2011-12 and 12-14 in 2012-13) and then finished 24-41 (6-26 in league play) in the first two seasons at the NCAA Division I level (11-20 in 2013-14 and 10-21 in 2014-15). However, since this season's group of seniors – Jaylen Franklin, Jaren Lewis, HaydenFarquhar and Hayden Howell – arrived on the scene prior to the 2015-16 season, the Wildcats are 56-53 overall and 26-32 in Southland Conference play.

RECORD PACE
• Wednesday night's victory over Houston Baptist gives ACU 15 wins on the season, one off of last year's season total when ACU went 16-15 in the regular season, finishing the season 16-16 after a first-round CIT loss at Drake. Only 27 other teams in ACU's 98 years of men's basketball have won at least 15 games in a season.
• ACU is on pace for a 20-plus-win regular season, which would be only the fourth such regular season in program history (98 seasons). the only other regular seasons in ACU history to finish with 20 wins came in 1979-80 (23 regular-season wins in a 27-5 campaign), 1985-86 (20 regular-season wins in a 23-7 season), and 1997-98 (21 regular-season  wins in a 22-6 season).

RICKS ON FIRE
• Junior guard Payten Ricks was voted the Southland Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Week on Monday. In a 73-72 win over McNeese, he poured in a game-high 19 points, including the game-winning three pointer with three seconds remaining. Ricks followed it up with a 22-point performance in a 75-72 victory over Southeastern Louisiana to secure the program's first-ever win in Hammond and second-ever win against the Lions.
• Against McNeese, Ricks tied his single-game career highs with five made three-pointers and six assists, with his final one leading to a Jaren Lewis layup that halted a four-point run and put the game out of reach for the Wildcats.
• On Saturday, Ricks played a vital role in improving the Wildcats' road mark to 5-3, converting all four attempts from beyond the arc, including the game-winner with 2.7 seconds to play. His 22 points were the second-most in a game in his career.
• This is Ricks' first Southland Conference Player of the Week award, joining teammate Jaren Lewis, who claimed two of the first three honors of the 2018-19 season.
• Ricks is fourth in Division I basketball in 3-point field goal percentage (49.0 percent), having hit 47 of 96 shots from beyond the arc this season. He's 25th in the country and first in the Southland Conference in total steals (38) and 39th in the country and first in the league in steals per game (2.11).

LEWIS LEAVING HIS MARK
• Jaren Lewis is the only player in ACU's Division I era (since 2013-14) to post 1,300 career points, 700 career rebounds and 200 career assists. He enters Saturday night's game against Northwestern State with 1,347 career points, 510 career field goals, 721 career rebounds and 212 career assists.
• Lewis is 32nd in the country among active NCAA Division I players in career rebounds, and he is 86th among active NCAA Division I players in career scoring.
• 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.

FRANKLIN'S FINEST MOMENTS
• Senior point guard Jaylen Franklin is tied for 11th among active Division I players in career steals with 190, and he is 21st in career assists (424), 23rd in career assist-t0-turnover ratio (1.54) and 32nd in career steals per game (1.79).
• Franklin enters Saturday's game third in the Southland Conference in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.10), first in total assists (84), first in assists per game (4.7) and seventh in steals per game (1.72).

AIMING FOR 1,000
• With his 21-point effort, junior center Jalone Friday is just 11 points away from 1,000 career points. When he gets those 11, he will join seniors Jaren Lewis (1,347 career points) and Jaylen Franklin (1,251 career points) as active 1,000-point career scorers for the Wildcats.

WILDCATS AMONG NATION'S BEST
• ACU is the highest-ranked team from the Southland Conference in the latest NET Daily Ranking at 163, 38 spots ahead of Sam Houston State, which is at 201. The rest of the league is Houston Baptist at 243, followed by New Orleans (251), Lamar (258), Central Arkansas (259), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (262), Stephen F. Austin (281), McNeese (297), Nicholls (301), Southeastern Louisiana (325), Northwestern State (336) and Incarnate Word (340).
• The Wildcatrs are ranked sixth in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage (41.4 percent), ninth in the nation in turnover margin (+4.9), 10th in the country in total seals (161), and 23rd in the nation in field goal percentage (49.1 percent).
• ACU is 134 for 324 from beyond the arc for that shooting percentage of 41.4 on the season. However, that percentage goes up to 41.7 when counting only games against Division I foes as ACU has hit 98 of 235 shots from beyond the arc in its 14 Division I games.

ODDS AND ENDS
• 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.
• Earlier this season, 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.
• ACU is 14-0 on the season when leading with two minutes left in regulation. ... ACU is 12-0 when leading at halftime and 12-0 when shooting better from the field than the opposition. ... ACU is 8-0 at Moody Coliseum this season, 8-0 when shooting 50 percent or better from the field and 8-0 when playing on weeknights.