Men's hoops to play in historic ESPNU game Friday night

PHOENIX – The ACU men’s basketball team will play in a nationally televised regular season game for just the third time ever on Friday night when the Wildcats take on Grand Canyon. Abilene Christian (15-12, 7-7 WAC) looks for its first-ever win over the Lopes (16-9, 8-5 WAC) in a rematch of a game played on Jan. 26 in Abilene, when GCU topped ACU, 75-73. The game tips at 10 p.m. CT at GCU Arena on ESPNU and ESPN+ as well as on the radio on the ACU Sports Network.

SERIES HISTORY VS. GRAND CANYON

• ALL-TIME | 4th meeting (GCU leads, 3-0)
• LAST MEETING | GCU 75, ACU 73 (Jan. 26, 2023 -  Abilene)
• STREAK | GCU, w3
• IN ABILENE | GCU leads, 1-0
• IN PHOENIX | GCU leads, 2-0
• NEUTRAL | n/a
• POSTSEASON | n/a

ACU STORYLINES

• NATIONALLY TELEVISED HISTORY | Friday will be ACU's third time playing on national television in the regular season. The team has done so has played two other games on a national station in the regular season: ACU played Xavier in Nov. 2013 at the Battle 4 Atlantis Mainland Tournament, and the game aired on FS1. The Wildcats also played Stephen F. Austin in Jan. 2015 at Moody, and the game aired on CBS Sports Network. Friday's game airs on ESPNU.
• EXPLAINING THE REMAINDER OF THE SCHEDULE | With the news out of Las Cruces involving the NM State men's basketball team, ACU will not play two its remaining games this season, both of which were scheduled against the Aggies. According to the WAC announcement, ACU will get two wins via forfeit because of the games not being played, and the two wins have already been added to the win total for the season. ACU now has just four games remaining in the final three weeks of the regular season, beginning Friday night at GCU.
• HOME LOSS TO SAM HOUSTON | ACU fell at home last time out to Sam Houston, 77-62, on Saturday, Feb. 11, in a game that featured four players in double figures in points. Joe Pleasant led the way with a near double-double of 13 points and nine rebounds, and despite a remarkable start of hitting each of its first seven shots and eight of its first nine to build up a lead, Sam Houston prevailed with a key 14-3 run in the second half.
• 70 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER | The Wildcats have 12 losses, all when allowing their opponents to score 70-plus points in the game. The team does have three wins when allowing an opponent to score more than 70, a 92-82 win at NAU, the 81-76 win over Utah Tech at home, and at CBU 87-71.
• BALANCED BALLIN’ | The Wildcats have four players averaging nine or more points per game and seven players averaging 7.6 or more points. The team is ranked 24 in the NCAA for assists per game with 16.3, with the best in the WAC. Tobias Cameron leads the Wildcats averaging 4.8 rebounds, but six different players are averaging at least three boards a game. There have been seven different players to lead
  the team in scoring in a game this year and 11 players have registered at least one game with double-figure scoring.
• LIGHTS, CAMERA, WACTION | The top 12 teams in conference play will earn a berth into the tournament in Las Vegas, but they will be seed-ed by the new system. The Wildcats currently sit at 8th in the resume seeding system with -1.21 points.
• WAC RESUME SEEDING | Conference win/loss records will determine who makes it to WAC Vegas but the resume seeding system will determine the order in which teams are seeded.

SCOUTING GRAND CANYON (16-10, 8-6 WAC)

• The Lopes are coming off a wild loss to UTRGV at home on Wednesday. UTRGV hit a shot with 1.4 seconds left to win it 77-76 in Phoenix, and GCU has now dropped two in a row heading into Friday night.
• GCU is averaging 73 points per game this season, led by Ray Harrison (16.8 ppg), Gabe McLothan (10.8 ppg), and Chance McMillian (10.2 ppg).

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