ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's basketball team and its No. 1 Lone Star Conference scoring offense starts league play this week with games against undefeated No. 20 West Texas A&M and 3-3 Eastern New Mexico.
Grant Boone will broadcast both games locally on 1280-AM KSLI.
ACU's women's and men's doubleheader vs. Eastern also will be streamed via the ACU Sports page at
SkyboxLive.com starting at 2 p.m.
The Wildcats were off from competition Thanksgiving weekend, but come into this week as the conference's top-scoring team with 80.8 points per game and have five players averaging 10.0 or more points. After being held to 72 points by Dallas Baptist in the season opener on Dec. 10, ACU averaged 83.6 points during its three-game home winning streak that was capped by tight 75-73 win over the Patriots.
The Wildcats shot better than 51 percent in the first half, but were limited to 36 percent in the second half on 9 of 25 shooting from the field. ACU also struggled at the free-throw line by missing 7 of 23 attempts, which lowered its season shooting percentage to .642 (43 for 67). The Patriots, meanwhile, shot 53.8 percent in the second half and came within a point of erasing ACU's 22-point lead.
Wildcat guards
Elliott Lloyd (23) and
Eric Lawton (20) both scored over 20 points in the victory, but only three of Lawton's points came during the second half. Senior center
Steven Werner chipped in 10 points, including four from the foul line, but was held to just three rebounds after posting consecutive double-doubles the previous weekend.
Seven of Lloyd's 12 second-half points came from the free-throw line and his last two with 31 seconds left pushed the ACU lead back to three points. Werner later iced the game with his foul shot coming with 18 seconds remaining.
Werner is the No. 3 rebounder in the LSC with 8.0 boards per game, while Lawton (17.5) and Lloyd (15.0) rank fourth and seventh, respectively, in scoring. Freshman
Parker Wentz is tied for the league lead in steals with 3.0 per game.
West Texas A&M (6-0) is the only conference school with a longer win streak than ACU. The Buffaloes are averaging 63.3 points per game and have wins this season over Southwestern Oklahoma, LSU-Shreveport, Oklahoma Christian and Missouri Southern, plus two vs. CSU-Pueblo.
WT senior forward Donald Sims Tuesday was named the LSC's Offensive Player of the Week after averaging 18.0 points and 10.5 rebounds this past weekend while shooting an incredible .800 from the floor (16-20). Sims also registered his first double-double of the season against Missouri Southern on Friday night with 19 points and 12 rebounds in the 57-55 win.
Saturday, the Wildcats will face Eastern New Mexico's Dennis Hardwell, the reigning conference defensive player of the week. The senior forward enabled the Greyhounds to average 15.8 points off turnovers over four games played over a seven-day span. He also turned in two multiple-block performances, with a two-block, four-steal performance in an 81-61 win over Missouri Southern.
Eastern improved to 3-2 on the season following its win over the Lions, but then fell back to .500 Monday night after suffering an 83-76 loss at Lubbock Christian. The Greyhounds will play host to Angelo State in its conference lid-lifter Wednesday before making their drive east to Abilene.
Eastern is tops in the conference with a .417 3-point field goal percentage and 3-point field goals made (48) and is No. 2 overall with a .484 field goal percentage behind West Texas A&M (.486). The Buffaloes also have the No. 1 scoring defense in the LSC at 56.3 points per game and are second to Midwestern State with a +10.7 rebounding margin.
