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SAN ANTONIO - A young, growing team on the road against a veteran team just hitting its stride turned out to be a bad combination for the ACU Wildcats Saturday evening at the McDermott Convocation Center.
The Wildcats got off to a hot start but couldn't sustain it as Incarnate Word ran away from the Wildcats for a 74-60 win, its fourth straight in Southland Conference men's basketball action. The loss drops ACU to 8-11 overall and 3-3 in league play, while the Cardinals improve to 9-7 and 4-1.
ACU will be back in action Monday at 6 p.m. against Sam Houston State in Huntsville in a game that will be broadcast on the American Sports Network.
The Wildcats hit 4 of their first 5 shots - including a pair of 3-pointers by Parker Wentz in the first 37 seconds of the game - to bolt out to a 10-2 lead. But it was all Cardinals for the next 39 minutes as they captured their fifth straight win over ACU.
After getting off to the good start, the Wildcats hit just 5 of their final 21 shots of the first half and committed eight turnovers to help the Cardinals get back in the game and eventually take a seven-point halftime lead. UIW senior forward Kyle Hittle had 14 of his 19 points in the first half to help the Cardinals grab a 34-27 lead at the break.
While the Cardinals' top player was having his way with the Wildcats' defense (hitting 6 of 8 field goals in the opening 20 minutes), ACU's freshman duo of Jaylen Franklin and Jaren Lewis - who are the team's top two scorers and combined to average almost 25 points per game - were a combined 1 of 9 from the field in the first half and scored just five points, all by Franklin.
"We got off to a good start, but we couldn't keep it up," ACU head coach Joe Golding said. "Then we started to turn the ball over and they turned them into easy baskets. They've got a veteran team and it showed up today."
Franklin - who scored 29 points earlier in the week in ACU's home win over McNeese State - was held to just 12 points on 2 of 12 shooting from the field. He did finish 8 for 10 from the free throw line, but never got going offensively as the Cardinal defense collapsed on the freshman guard every time he drove into the paint.
"They (the Cardinals) obviously paid a lot of attention to him," Golding said. "They made him pass, and he did a good job of passing out of some trouble in the lane and hitting open teammates. We've got to do a better job of knocking down shots."
The Wildcats hit just 39.1 percent of their shots (18 of 46) after shooting better than 50 percent from the field in their last two games. The Cardinals, meanwhile hit 29 of 49 shots from the floor (59.2 percent), including 14 of 22 in the second half (63.6 percent).
ACU had a couple of chances to cut the UIW lead to 10 points and get back into the game in the second half, but couldn't get a couple of 3-point shots to fall. UIW had as much as a 20-point lead in the second half as it pulled away from the Wildcats.
Junior wing Jovan Crnic led the Wildcats with 14 points off the bench, while freshman Hayden Howell had seven points off the bench.
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