ACU Wins Thriller in Front of Season's Biggest Crowd

ABILENE — The ACU men's basketball team earned a much-needed victory in the middle of their Western Athletic Conference schedule, defeating UT Arlington 67-63 in front of a season-high 1,818 rowdy fans at Moody Coliseum on Thursday night.

The win snapped the Wildcats' seven-game losing streak, and evened the regular season series with the Mavericks with one meeting to go on March 7 in the regular season finale. More than 1,000 students were in attendance on Greek Night presented by Arrow Ford, surpassing the student record since Moody reopened in 2022 after a $50 million renovation.

Bradyn Hubbard with 21 points and Rich Smith with five assists and three steals both pushed through noticeable pain to lead ACU. The Cats' hounding defense tied its season-high with 22 turnovers forced leading to 21 points. 

Leading 60-57 with less than a minute to play, Smith found Zy Wright underneath the basket, who came off a screen from Cbo Newton, and laid the ball in to push the ACU edge to five. Wright, Yaniel Rivera and Joseph Venzant then combined to sink five consecutive free throws to ice the game.







STAT PACK

• Thursday was Hubbard's eighth game this season with 20+ points, and his first since the previous matchup with UTA on Jan. 10. ACU is now 10-2 when Hubbard scores at least 15 points.
• ACU limited the Mavericks to just 38 field goal attempts, the lowest by far an opponent has shot this year.
• The Cats grabbed 14 offensive rebounds, leading to 16 second chance points.
• After not shooting a free throw until the waning seconds of the first half, ACU went 15-of-18 at the line in the second half.
• The win pushed back against several season trends: this was just ACU's second win after trailing at halftime, and the fourth win when shooting worse than its opponent.
• Yaniel Rivera had a breakout shooting performance, going 4-of-6 from the field, 3-of-4 on 3-pointers and 2-of-2 at the free throw line for 13 points.
• Zy Wright provided eight points off the bench.

UP NEXT

The Wildcats (11-13, 3-8) battle rival Tarleton State in back-to-back games: first at 3 p.m. Saturday at Moody Coliseum for Shoot Your Shot presented by First Financial Bank, and then at 7 p.m. Monday in Stephenville for a game which was rescheduled twice due to a winter storm.