ABILENE – Abilene Christian opens the Western Athletic Conference season on Wednesday when Texas-Arlington visits for a 6 p.m. contest.
The Cats are coming off of an 87-62 win over Navy to improve to 3-2 on the season.
UTA is 1-5 after snapping a five-game slide to open the season. The Mavericks beat North Carolina A&T 87-76.
ACU Storylines
THE HISTORY: ACU is 1-1 against UT-Arlington in conference games. They split the series last season with ACU getting a 92-72 win in Moody Coliseum.
Aspen Thornton had 25 points and five assists in that game.
HONORS: Payton Hull, a freshman from Peaster, scored 34 points with nine three-pointers in the win at Navy to tie school Division I-era records for both categories. Her big game earned her Newcomer of the Week in the Western Athletic Conference.
TRIPS AND DOUBS: ACU got a triple-double from
Bella Earle, who had 13 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in the win at Navy. She is one of seven players in the NCAA to have accomplished that feat this season. In the same game,
Addison Martin went for a 14-point, 11-rebound double-double.
BIG AT THE ARCH: Aspen Thornton has hit 50 percent of her three-point attempts and
Payton Hull checks in at .469. Those two are 1-2 in the WAC and Thornton is 23rd nationally in three-point percentage. Hull is 45th in the NCAA. The Cats average 26 three-point tries per game, which is 21st in the nation.
QUADS: Aspen Thornton scored her 1000th career point in the loss to Towson on Saturday. Thornton, who had 608 points in her one season at Ouachita Baptist, eclipsed quadruple digits in her career with a second-quarter three-pointer.
FOURSOME SCORE SOME: Payton Hull leads a quartet of Wildcats with double-figure scoring averages at 14.6.
Aspen Thornton averages 12.2,
Addison Martin checks in at 10.8 and
Bella Earle at 10.2.
REBOUNDS: Bella Earle and
Addison Martin get 14 rebounds combined per game. Earle leads the team with 7.4 and Martin is at 7.3. Earle is 22nd nationally with 4.2 offensive rebounds per game.
Scouting UTA
- The Mavericks started the season with five consecutive losses before getting off the goose egg last week.
- Taliyah Clark leads the Mavs with 13.2 points per game with Avery Brittingham at 12.5 and Gia Adams at 11.2 points per game.
- Avery Brittingham has done it all for UTA. She averages 12.5 points to go with a team-leading 8.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.7 steals per game.
