Cats Set Rebound Record in 120-69 Rout

ABILENE – Abilene Christian routed Howard Payne in a confidence-boosting 120-69 victory on Sunday.
 
It was the first 120-point game for the Wildcats since 2013-14 when ACU posted a 124-57 victory over Southwestern Adventist. ACU's 69 points in the second half matched the game total for the Yellow Jackets.
 
The team also posted a D-I-era school record with 60 rebounds and had the second-best single-game record with 32 assists.
 
"That's a good team, offensively," said ACU Head Coach Brette Tanner. "They scored 104 at McMurry the other night. I challenged our guys to hold them to 65. Part of that's on me. We went to a zone with the game in hand and they hit some three-pointers. Offensively, I'm always telling them to shoot with confidence. I thought we shot with more confidence tonight."
 
All 14 Wildcats scored and had at least one rebound and 12 also had an assist. For the game, six players matched or set their career highs and five did the same in career rebounds.
 
Howard Payne led the game as last as the 11:26 mark of the first half but the Wildcats closed out the half with 29 points in the final 12 minutes to lead 51-38.
 
JV Seat it a three-pointer to make it 102-62 with 6:03 left in the game and Muodubem Muoneke finished the scoring with a dunk to make the final margin the largest for ACU.
 
Five Wildcats reached double figures in the scoring column, led by Muoneke with 19. Ali Abdou Dibba added 17, Aidan Igiehon 15, Airion Simmons 12 and Leonardo Bettiol 10. Those were career highs for Muoneke and Igiehon. Colby Tanner (6), Yaniel Rivera (5) and Ma'Shy Hill (4) also had career bests in scoring.
 
Igiehon led the team with eight rebounds with Simmons and Immanuel Allen added six each. Allen, Muoneke (5), Kavion McClain (5) and Hill (3) matched or established new career highs in rebounds.
 
McClain led the assists effort with seven and Cameron Steele added five. Those were career highs for both players. Ma'Shy Hill also added his first three assists of the season.
 
It wasn't all sunshine and roses. Tanner noted his team's 17 turnovers while forcing 18. ACU is among the NCAA leaders in turnover ratio.
 
"We're typically pretty high up there on assist-to-turnover ratio," Tanner said. "We only turned them over 18 times and we had 17. Twelve of ours were in the first half, so we got better."
 
The Wildcats take finals week off and return to action on Sunday, hosting UTEP at 3 p.m.