First-Half Surge Carries No. 2 Abilene Christian over No. 6 Lamar
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KATY, Texas – The reigning Southland Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament champions will have an opportunity for a second-straight trip to the NCAA Tournament.
A blistering offensive performance in the first half enabled second seed Abilene Christian to topple determined sixth seed Lamar 93-71 in Friday’s semifinal, putting the Wildcats in Saturday’s championship game against top seed Nicholls on ESPN2 at 8:30 p.m. CT, with the winner earning the conference’s automatic tourney bid.
“We knew the start of the game would be important. We knew that if we got off to a good start, that would help us,” said ACU coach Joe Golding. “I thought our guys did a tremendous job of doing that and wearing them down.”
Playing their third game in as many nights, the Cardinals (10-18) saw their six-game win streak come an end as ACU (22-4) shot 61 percent from the field in the first half to build a 52-29 halftime lead. On their way to a 14
th win in their last 16 games, the Wildcats never trailed while building as much as a 26-point lead.
All-Conference first teamer Kolton Kohl and Airion Simmons each scored 14 points for the Wildcats in the first half. Kohl finished with 20 points, six rebounds and three assists in just 21 minutes of play, while Simmons provided 16 of ACU’s 46 points off the bench.
“We ran into a buzzsaw,” said Lamar coach Tic Price. “They turned turnovers (16) into points (29). They took us out of our sets. We struggled running our half-court sets.
Lamar got within 5-4 in the early stages, but the Cardinals could not keep pace with an ACU team that defeated twice in the regular season. The effort was clearly there from Lamar, yet as the Wildcats began to feed off the energy from the strong contingent of ACU fans in Merrell Center, the game started to get away from them.
Even with the huge halftime lead, the Wildcats came out of the locker determined not to get complacent and overlook the Cards.
“Coach was telling us to have a chip on our shoulders,” said Simmons, who knocked down three of ACU’s nine 3-pointers.
However, the Cardinals refused to fold. A Lincoln Smith basket brought Lamar within shouting distance at 60-44 with 12:19 left. ACU missed 11 of their first 14 shots in the second half due in part to the Cards playing their best defensive stretch of the night.
The brief offensive lapse did not bother ACU, who proceeded to put together a 21-8 run to give them an 81-52 cushion with 5:37 left. The Wildcats led by as many as 34 points as they played their reserves over the final few moments.
“At the end of the day, I thought the combination of their defense and us having tired legs put us in a pretty bad position,” said Price.
Anderson Kopp scored 23 points to lead Lamar, which will return up to nine players, including All-Defensive Team member David Muoka, for the 2021-22 season.
Having been denied a chance to defend their title last season due to the pandemic, the Wildcats – who did not play against Nicholls in the regular season – have no intentions of letting the opportunity slip away.
“I think the biggest thing for me and the younger guys is to continue to push,” said Kohl.