Wildcats try to maintain hold on 2nd Saturday at UIW

ACU at Incarnate Word

When: Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019
Time: 3 p.m.
Where: McDermott Center (San Antonio, Texas)
Records: ACU 20-5, 9-3; Incarnate Word 6-18, 1-10
Series: UIW leads 12-5
Last Game: ACU 69, Incarnate Word 59 (March 5, 2018 / San Antonio, Texas)
Streak: ACU, w2
Last ACU win: ACU 69, Incarnate Word 59 (March 5, 2018 / San Antonio, Texas)
Last UIW win: UIW 89, ACU 75 (March 1, 2017 / San Antonio, Texas)
Radio: 98.1 FM (98theticket.com)
Watch: STRETCH
Live Stats: SIDEARM

THIBODAUX, Louisiana — The ACU Wildcat are back on the road Saturday afternoon to take on Incarnate Word in a Southland Conference contest at the McDermott Center on the UIW campus. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. and the game can be heard on 98.1 FM The Ticket.

Here's a look at the Wildcats as they enter Saturday's contest:

HEADLINER
• The Wildcats are 20-5 on the season, enjoying the program's best season since the 2007-08 team finished 20-9 and reached the semifinals of the Lone Star Conference Postseason Touranment. This year's team is easily the best of the NCAA Division I era of ACU Athletics (since 2013-14).

• ACU has the most overall wins in the league and nly 16 team in the country – led by 24-2 Gaonzaga, 24-1 Houston and 23-1 Tennessee -- have  more wins at the Division I level than the 20 posted by ACU. The Wildcats are in a group of 20-game winners that includes defending national champion Villanova, along with North Texas, Michigan State, Texas Tech, LSU, Kentucky, Lipscomb, Texas State and Cincinnati.

100 WINS FOR GOLDING
• The Wildcats' 73-72 victory at McNeese on Jan. 12 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 21-41 (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 before the start of the 2015-16 season, the Wildcats are 62-55 overall and 32-34 in Southland Conference play.

• Golding – who has a career record of 107-126 – has coached the Wildcats to the fourth-most wins of any head coach in the history of ACU men's basketball, trailing A.B. Morris (306-248 from 1924-55), Dee Nutt (208-201 from 1955-69 and 1988-90), and Mike Martin (148-152 from 1980-88 and 1999-2002).

RECORD PACE
• Wednesday night's ACU victory over Nicholls pushed ACU to 20-5 on the season as the Wildcats continue to surge past last season's win total of 16, which was the most by a men's team since the 2008-09 season when ACU was 20-9. Only eight teams in the 98 years of ACU men's basketball – including this year's team – have won at least 20 games in a season.

• At 20-5, the 2018-19 team is one of just four teams in program history to record a 20-win regular season (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 season that ended with the Wildcats at 22-6).

• These are the winningest teams in ACU men's basketball history:
    > 1979-80: 27-5
    > 1985-86: 23-7
    > 1997-98: 22-6
    > 1965-66: 21-7
    > 1998-99: 21-8
    > 1958-59: 20-7
    > 2007-08: 20-9

RICKS ON FIRE
• Junior guard Payten Ricks is having one of the best long-range shooting seasons in ACU history, and his .460 shooting percentage from beyond the arc this season is the best season performance in program history.

• He is first in the league and 10th in Division I basketball seed in 3-point shooting percentage. His 63 3-pointers made this season is the second-best total in the league and 104th-best in the country. With 99 career 3-pointers, he needs one more 3-pointer to become the 12th Wildcat in history to record 100 career 3-pointers.

• Ricks is also having a terrific defensive season as he ranks fifth in the league and 71st in the country in steals per game (1.80).

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 at Incarnate Word with 1,441 career points, along with 763 career rebounds, 165 steals and 228 assists.

• Among active players at the NCAA Division I level, Lewis ranks 36th in rebounds and tied for 86th in points. He is ACU's all-time Division I leader in both of those categories, among others.

• 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 FAVORITE DISHES
• Senior point guard Jaylen Franklin is tied for eighth among active Division I players in career steals with 205, 23rd in career assists (457) and 28th in career steals per game (1.81).

• Franklin had back-to-back 20-point games against Lamar (22) and Sam Houston State (20) to give him 14 career 20-point games, which is the highest total among active Wildcats. Franklin is ACU's second-leading scorer of the Division I era (1,330 points) and is the 127th-leading active scorer in Division I basketball.

• Franklin has 520 career field goals, joining Lewis (547 career field goals) as the only two Wildcats with at least 500 career field goals at the NCAA Division I level. He has 1,009 career field goals and he and Lewis are the only active Wildcats with more than 1,000 career field goal attempts (Lewis has 1,066 career field goal attempts).  

FRIDAY MILESTONES
• Junior center Jalone Friday enters the game Saturday afternoon's game with 1,07- career points, only the fourth Wildcat in the program's NCAA Division I era (since 2013-14) to top 1,000 career points, joining senior forward Jaren Lewis (1,441 points), senior point guard Jaylen Franklin (1,330 points) and former shooting guard Parker Wentz  (1,062 points in his final three seasons after scoring 217 points in his freshman season of 2012-13, ACU's last season at the NCAA Division II level).

• In ACU's 78-69 win over Northwestern State earlier this season, Friday became just the 11th player in ACU history and third in the Division I era to top 100 career 3-pointers. In the I era, Wentz is ACU's all-time leader in 3-pointers made with 210, followed by Austin Cooke with 136 and Friday now with 106.

ODDS AND ENDS
• The Wildcats rank 23rd in the country in scoring defense, allowing just 64.2 points per game, and in Wednesday night's win over Nicholls they allowed just 48 points for the second time this season (the first being in a 60-48 win over UC-Riverside on
Nov. 24). ACU has allowed 60 points or less 11 times this season (ACU is 10-1 in those games). Prior to the win over UC-Riverside, the last time ACU limited a Division I opponent to less than 50 points came in a 43-40 loss to North Texas in December 1950.

• ACU is 11-1 at home in 2018-19, joining the 2015-16 team (10-4 at home) as the only two Division I-era Wildcat teams to have at least 10 home wins in a season. ACU hasn't won more than 11 home games in a season since the 1986-87 team finished 12-0 at
Moody Coliseum, a record that was part of ACU's program-record 44-game home court winning streak that stretched from 1983-84 through the 1987-88 season.