THIBODAUX, Louisiana – The last time the ACU Wildcats won 20 games in a men's basketball season, none of the current Wildcats were out of grade school, ACU was still playing at the NCAA Division II level and current head coach
Joe Golding was the team's assistant coach.
That 2007-08 team finished 20-9 and was the last ACU team to hit that milestone until Wednesday night when the current edition of the Wildcats trampled Nicholls, 64-48, at Stopher Gym to post its 20th win of the season.
The Wildcats never trailed in a workmanlike effort against the defending Southland Conference regular season co-champion. ACU limited the Colonels to their lowest point total of the season and held its second NCAA Division I opponent of the season to just 48 points in a game (UC-Riverside was the first in a 60-48 ACU win on Nov. 24).
The Colonels never found an offensive rhythm against the Wildcats, who only forced 10 turnovers but didn't allow many good looks for Nicholls shooters. The Colonels shot just 29.6 percent for the game (16 for 54), including just 22.7 percent from 3-point range (5 of 22).
"We really guarded well (Wednesday night) and made it tough on their shooters," ACU head coach
Joe Golding said. "They didn't get anything easy and that was something we talked about going into the game.
Jaylen Franklin,
Payten Ricks,
B.J. Maxwell and
Trey Lenox did a really good job guarding them out on the perimeter and making it tough on them to get anything going."
ACU led wire-to-wire, jumping out to a 6-0 lead on back-to-back 3-pointers from
B.J. Maxwell and
Payten Ricks and never looking back. The Wildcats led 30-16 at halftime, extended it to as much as 20 points midway through the half and never led by less than 11 points in the final half.
Jaren Lewis led three Wildcats in double figures with 15 points, while
Jalone Friday added 12 points and eight rebounds and Maxwell chipped in with 11. ACU didn't shoot the ball that well, hitting just 40 percent of its shots (24 of 60), but it didn't need to be great offensively to improve to 20-5 overall and remain in second place in the Southland Conference at 9-3, three games behind league-leading Sam Houston State (12-0) and one game in front of New Orleans and Southeastern Louisiana, which are 8-4 and tied for third.
The win was an important bounce-back victory for the Wildcats, who dropped a 90-85 double-overtime heartbreaker to Sam Houston State at home last Saturday. With the win Wednesday night, ACU still hasn't lost back-to-back games this season.
"I'm really proud of this team for the way these guys got ready to play," Golding said. "We had really good practices on Monday and Tuesday and (associate head coach)
Brette Tanner did a great job with the scout and getting these guys locked in defensively. This was our toughest game of the year just because of the travel and coming off the loss to Sam Houston. But our guys were ready to play and it showed."
ACU will be back on the road Saturday at 3 p.m. when it takes on Incarnate Word in San Antonio.
