ABILENE — Senior Day at Moody Coliseum could scarcely have gone better than it did for the ACU Wildcats.
Each of their three seniors —
Jaylen Franklin,
Jaren Lewis and
Hayden Farquhar — had big games, the Wildcats blew out Incarnate Word, 81-52, and ACU finished its spectacular regular season with a sparkling 25-6 record. More importantly, the Wildcats won their fourth straight game and will head to next week's Southland Conference Postseason Tournament with a full head of steam.
The Wildcats finishes second in the Southland Conference standings at 14-4 and earned the league's second double-bye directly into the semifinals. ACU won't play until Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Merrell Center in Katy against an opponent to be determined.
Lewis — who during the game joined Robert McLeod, Andrew Prince and Rodney Fedell as the only four Wildcats in the 98 years of ACU men's basketball to record 1,500 career points and 800 rebounds — played one of the finest games of his career, finishing with 19 points, seven rebounds, nine assists and three steals in 32 minutes.
Franklin hit a pair of 3-pointers early in the game and finished with 14 points, two rebounds and three steals in 32 minutes. He and freshman guard
Damien Daniels directed an ACU offense that had 19 assists on 29 field goals and hit 12 of 26 3-point attempts.
And Farquhar had 14 early points in a starting role as he set a person career record for points in a season as he finished with 14 points, four rebounds, three assists and one steal in 23 minutes. Farquhar was 4 of 7 from 3-point range, leading an ACU offense that buried the Cardinals early in the game.
ACU jumped out to a 9-0 lead to force an early UIW timeout and led 20-4 in the first 6:10 of the contest. The Cardinals — who finished 6-25 and 1-17 in the league in head coach Dr. Carson Cunningham's first season — never mounted a threat against the Wildcats.
When all three seniors left the game separately in the final three minutes, each received a rousing standing ovation from the Moody Coliseum crowd. They were each greeted with hugs from head coach
Joe Golding, associate head coach
Brette Tanner and the rest of the coaching staff and teammates on the bench.
"We couldn't have scripted this day any better," Golding said. "I don't remember the last group of seniors to leave the floor at Moody for the last time and each of them get a standing ovation. Didn't happen to me, I know that. I just told each of them that I loved them, that I appreciated what they had done for this program, for this university and for me and the coaching staff, and then I told them we had two more wins in Katy to get."
Junior guard
Payten Ricks finished with 11 points and freshman forward
Joe Pleasant continued his strong play with 12 points, seven rebounds and one block in 18 minutes off the bench.
