ABILENE – The last six seasons haven't been easy for the ACU men's basketball program.
Four years of transition from NCAA Division II to NCAA Division I affiliation brought on a lot of growing pains and a lot of losses. Last year's team — finally free from the bonds of transition — was in position to reach the Southland Conference Postseason Tournament in its first year of eligibility only to fade down the stretch and miss the tournament.
This year's team has been on a mission to reach Katy since last season ended, and even clinching a spot in the tournament Saturday afternoon came the hard way. After an emotional week in which two of the team's starters were dismissed from the team, the Wildcats dropped a 75-66 decision at Moody Coliseum to a hard-charging Southeastern Louisiana squad.
But because Nicholls beat Central Arkansas, 100-57, some 675 miles to the southeast of Abilene, the Wildcats clinched one of eight spots in the tournament, which is March 13-17 at the Merrell Center in Katy.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 21-6 overall and 10-4 in the Southland and into third place in the league standings, one-half game behind New Orleans (11-4) and one-half game ahead of Southeastern Louisiana (10-5).
"The fact that we clinched a spot in the tournament is obviously very exciting, despite the loss (Saturday)," ACU head coach
Joe Golding said. "I'm really happy for our three seniors –
Jaylen Franklin,
Jaren Lewis and
Hayden Farquhar – to have a chance to play for the conference championship and a spot in the NCAA Tournament."
This will be ACU's first appearance ever in the Southland Conference Postseason Tournament and the program's first appearance in a conference tournament since the 2007-08 Wildcats — with Golding on the bench as an assistant coach — reached the semifinals of the Lone Star Conference Tournament when ACU was still at the Division II level. Prior to that, the last time ACU had reached the conference tournament was the 1997-98 season.
The Wildcats had a chance to clinch a berth on their own Saturday afternoon at home, but they had no answer for the Lions'Moses Greenwood, who dominated the game inside with 27 points and 11 rebounds. Greenwood hit 12 of 16 shots with most of them coming within 10 feet of the basket.
Southeastern Louisiana dominated the glass, out-rebounding ACU by a whopping 44-26, including grabbing 17 offensive rebounds. All of those rebounds led to a 21-6 advantage in second-chance points.
"That was the game," Golding said of the difference on the glass. "They beat us up pretty badly and that hasn't happened very much this season. We didn't do a very good job after a tough week, but we've got to figure it out. Nobody in this league is going to feel sorry for us, so we've got to stop feeling sorry for ourselves.
"This team is made up of a bunch of fighters, and we didn't show much of that (Saturday)," Golding said. "There were a bunch of plays in the game where I thought it looked like Southeastern looked a step quicker than us or where it looked like they wanted it more than we did. We're not going to make any excuses in this program. Southeastern came in here and punched us and we didn't respond. But we'll go on the road next week (at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday and at Central Arkansas next Saturday) and we'll get it figured out."
The Wildcats trailed early 7-0 before coming back to take a brief 22-21 lead with 8:49 left in the first half. But the Lions went on a 16-3 over the next 2:05 to take a 37-25 lead with 2:44 left in the first half. The lead was 42-29 at halftime and expanded to as many as 16 points (49-33) early in the second half.
ACU would cut the Lions' lead to seven points several times in the second half, but never could get any closer as Southeastern dealt the Wildcats just their second home loss of the season.
Farquhar led the Wildcats off the bench with 16 points, while Franklin had 15 and Lewis 12 for the Wildcats.
