Wildcats Stumble Late in Nacogdoches

Box Score NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Yaniel Rivera scored a career-high 19 points, but the ACU men's basketball team suffered its first setback of the 2025-26 season with a hard-fought 76-66 loss at rival Stephen F. Austin on Friday night.
 
Rivera, a third-year guard from Puerto Rico, was 5-for-8 shooting, including a pair of 3-pointers. Rivera was also a perfect 7-for-7 at the free throw line. His previous career best was 11 which he scored in last week's home win over Omaha.
 
The Wildcats (3-1) scored the game's first eight points as the Lumberjacks were held scoreless for the initial five minutes. SFA (4-0) rallied to lead 35-33 at halftime.
 
The game remained back-and-forth down the stretch until the 'Jacks pushed ahead by eight with a pair of free throws, and a 3-pointer with just over a minute left. The long ball by Narit Chotikavanic, a transfer from West Texas A&M in Canyon, was a part of a career-high performance. All 24 of his points came from behind the arc (8-for-10), as SFA shot 56.5% on 3-pointers as a team (13-of-23).
 
The ten-point margin belies the competitiveness of Friday's game with eight ties and nine lead changes. Dating back to Dec. 2022, each of the previous five meetings between ACU and SFA had been decided by five or fewer points.  
 
The Lumberjacks did a superb job of controlling the basketball and not allowing the Wildcats' defense to force mistakes. SFA only turned the ball over eight times, contributing to six ACU points. Head coach Brette Tanner's team goal is to force at least 15 turnovers a game, which the Wildcats had done in the season's first three games.
 
Cbo Newton, a transfer from Grambling State, scored 12 points off the bench and added eight rebounds and three assists.
 
Rich Smith dropped in 10, and Bradyn Hubbard stayed in single digits at nine, snapping his double-digit scoring streak at eight games in-a-row.
 

UP NEXT
 
ACU continues its road trip in the Lone Star State with a showdown in San Marcos against Texas State on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Wildcats defeated the Bobcats 72-60 in Abilene last season.