MBB closes regular season at Sam Houston

ABILENE – After nearly a week off since playing last, the Wildcats will have another difficult test ahead as they close out the regular season in Huntsville.  Abilene Christian will look to even the season series after suffering a 77-62 loss to the Bearkats at home on Feb. 11. Sam Houston is still in the hunt for a conference title with a win and a Utah Valley loss. 

SERIES HISTORY VS. SAM HOUSTON

• ALL-TIME | 42nd meeting (SHSU leads, 27-14)
• LAST MEETING | SHSU 77, ACU 62 (Feb. 11, 2023 -  Abilene, Texas)
• STREAK | SHSU, w3
• IN ABILENE | tied 9-9
• IN HUNTSVILLE | SHSU leads 17-3
• NEUTRAL | ACU leads 2-1
• POSTSEASON | n/a

ACU STORYLINES

• DOWN TO THE WIRE WITH UVU | The Wildcats closed out their home slate with a game against the top team in the conference, Utah Valley, last weekend. Despite a blowout loss in Utah, ACU battled for 40 minutes and came up just short against the regular season champs. The Wildcats were back to their defensive identity and held the Wolverines to just 66 points. ACU also matched them on the boards with each team grabbing 34 in the game. 
• 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.
• DOUBLE OT LOSS TO SFA | ACU came up just short on Wednesday night when they battled in double overtime against the Lumberjacks at home. Ali Dibba scored a season-high 21 points and Joe Pleasant had one of his best games of the year with 18 points and 12 rebounds. The Wildcats held a 20-13 advantage on forced turnovers and a 23-15 advantage on points off turnovers but SFA shot over 50 percent from the floor and made clutch plays down the stretch to secure the win.
• 70 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER | The Wildcats have 15 losses, all but one 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 21 in the NCAA for assists per game with 16.0, with the best in the WAC. Joe Pleasant leads the Wildcats averaging 4.5 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 9th in the resume seeding system with -1.45 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 SAM HOUSTON (23-6, 13-4 WAC)

• The Bearkats have three players averaging double figures led by Qua Grant who is scoring 13.6 points per game. Donte Powers is averaging 10.9 points per game and Cameron Huefner is averaging 10.3 points per game. 
• Sam Houston has one of the best defenses in the country holding opponents to under 59 points per game and allowing just 38.7 percent of opponents shots to fall. Grant also leads the conference in steals per game with two per contest.
• The Bearkats have won their last six contests, including an overtime win at SFA last night, and are 11-1 over their last 12 games. 

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