Wildcats host Lions needing one win to get to Katy

Southeastern Louisiana at ACU

When: Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019

Time: 3:30 p.m.

Where: Moody Coliseum (Abilene, Texas)

Records: SLU 13-14, 9-5; ACU 21-5, 10-3

Series: SLU leads 7-2

Last Game: ACU 75, SLU 72 (Jan. 12, 2019 / Hammond, Louisiana)

Streak: ACU, w1

Last ACU win: ACU 75, SLU 72 (Jan. 12, 2019 / Hammond, Louisiana)

Last SLU win: SLU 72, ACU 70 (Jan. 6, 2018 / Abilene, Texas)

Radio: 98.1 FM (98theticket.com)

Watch: ESPN3

Live Stats: StatBroadcast

ABILENE – The ACU Wildcats return to Moody Coliseum Saturday afternoon to take on Southeastern Louisiana and a win on their home floor will clinch their spot in the Southland Conference Postseason Tournament.

Tipoff between ACU and Southeastern Louisiana is set for 3:30 p.m. and can be heard on 98.1 FM The Ticket and seen on ESPN3. 

The Wildcats are 11-1 at home this season, part of one of the best seasons in ACU history. The Wildcats enter Saturday's game at 21-5 overall and 10-3 and in second place in the league behind Sam Houston State (13-1 in the Southland). With one win in any of their five remaining contests, the Wildcats clinch a spot in the conference tournament for the first time and keeps them in the running for the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament and the regular-season conference championship.

ACU is 2 1/2 games behind league-leading Sam Houston State, which has the inside track on both the No. 1 seed and regular-season title at 13-1 in the league. ACU can still win the regular-season title and clinch the No. 1 seed in the tournament by winning out to get to 15-3 while Sam Houston State goes either 1-3 or 0-4 in its last four games to finish 14-4 or 13-5.

The Lions, meanwhile, are reeling a big after an 89-68 loss Wednesday night at New Orleans. Southeastern is 9-5 overall and now 1 1/2 games behind ACU, although still in good shape for a spot in the conference tournament. 

ACU beat the Lions earlier this season, 75-72, when Payten Ricks buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Wildcats their first win in Hammond, Louisiana.

SATURDAY'S PROMOTION

Saturday is the annual Play 4 Rex Foundation Game, which recognizes the organization that was founded to honor the life and memory of Rex Fleming (son of ACU associate director of athletics Lance Fleming and his wife, Jill), who died in November 2012 after a two-year battle against brain cancer. The foundation has raised more than $450,000 over the last six years and helped countless families living in the world of pediatric cancer. Both teams will be wearing shooting shirts Saturday with the P4X logo on the front in the respective school colors. If you're interested in learning more about or donating to the foundation, go to p4xfoundation.com. And if you're interested in playing in or sponsoring our sixth annual golf tournament -- the largest non-profit tournament in Abilene – on Monday, May 13, at the Abilene Country Club, email Lance Fleming at play4rex@gmail.com.

HEADLINER

• The Wildcats are 21-5 on the season, enjoying the program's best season since the 1998-99 team finished 21-8 and reached the championship game of the NCAA Division II South Central Region Tournament. 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 only 23 team in the country – led by 26-2 Gonzaga, 25-1 Houston, 24-3 Michigan and 24-2 teams from Michigan and Tennessee – have more wins at the NCAA Division I level than the 21 posted by ACU. The Wildcats are in a group of 15 teams that have won 21 games this season, a group that includes Lipscomb, San Francisco and Texas State at 21-6, as well as North Carolina, Texas Tech, LSU, Florida State, Washington and ACU at 21-5.

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 63-55 overall and 33-34 in Southland Conference play.

RECORD PACE

• Last Saturday afternoon's ACU victory at Incarnate Word pushed ACU to 21-5 on the season as ACU
continues 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 21-5, 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).

• The Wildcats' 21 wins this season are tied for the second-most by a team in the regular season in the 98-year history of ACU men's basketball. The most wins by a team in the regular season in ACU history came in 1979-80 when the Wildcats won 23 games. The 1997-98 team won 21 games, a mark this year's team has tied.

RICKS ON FIRE

• Junior guard Payten Ricks is having one of the best long-range shooting seasons in ACU history, and his .451 shooting percentage from beyond the arc this season is the second-best single-season performance in program history. 

• Ricks leads the Southland Conference and is tied for 14th in Division I basketball in 3-point field goal percentage (.451). His 64 total 3-pointers are third in the league and 136th in the country. His .405 career 3-point field goal percentage is the fifth-best in the history of ACU basketball and the second-best in ACU's Division I history behind the .438 posted by Parker Wentz from 2013-16.

• Ricks has turned himself into a terrific two-way player as his defense is one of the reasons ACU ranks 18th in the country in scoring defense (63.5 points per game allowed). Ricks ranks fourth in the league and 70th in the country in total steals (70) and fourth in the league and 73rd in the country in steals per game (1.81).

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's game vs. Southeastern Louisiana with 1,450 career points, along with 768 career rebounds, 167 steals and 229 assists. 

• Among active players at the NCAA Division I level, Lewis ranks 34th in steals, 39th in rebounds and 92nd in points. He is ACU's all-time Division I leader in both career points and rebounds.

• Lewis needs just eight points to move past former ACU All-American forward and director of athletics Jared Mosley into 12th place on ACU's career scoring list. Mosley finished with 1,457 points from 1995-99.

• With 768 career rebounds, Lewis needs just 16 rebounds to pass Greg McElvy for sixth place on ACU's career rebounds list. McElvy had 783 rebounds from 1972-75.

• 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 10th among active players in steals with 206, 25th in total assists (463), tied for 28th in steals per game (1.81). He also ranks 88th in assists per game (4.06) and is 13th in career points (1,342).

• Earlier this season, 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 has 525 career field goals, joining Lewis (550 career field goals) as the only two Wildcats with at least 500 career field goals at the NCAA Division I level. He has 1,016 career field goal attempts and he and Lewis are the only active Wildcats with more than 1,000 career field goal attempts (Lewis has 1,073 career field goal attempts).

ODDS AND ENDS

• The Wildcats rank 18th in the country in scoring defense, allowing just 63.5 points per game, and have allowed just 48 points in back-to-back wins over Nicholls (Feb. 13) and Incarnate Word (Feb. 16). In a Nov. 24 win over UC-Riverside, the Wildcats allowed the Highlanders just 48 points in a 60-48 win. 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.