The men’s basketball team’s losing streak extended to three games, after it’s 74-52 loss to the Southern Utah University Thunderbirds on Saturday. The Wildcats’ season record dropped to 10-9, and 4-6 in the last 10 games.
After the skid, the Wildcats are 2-4 in conference play, putting them in sixth place in the Western Athletic Conference standings.
Bradyn Hubbard, senior forward from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was ACU’s leading scorer with 14 points. His performance comes after scoring only five points in the team’s last game against California Baptist.
Head Coach Brette Tanner took ownership of the team’s performance last week.
“To be real honest, I did not handle last week real well,” he said. “I think that spread into our team a little bit. I felt like I was doing a good job of pushing everything down, and last week was a long week, hard week.”
He noted there were many outside distractions for his team.
The team was without Cbo Newton, redshirt sophomore guard from Ruston, Louisiana, for the past two games due to personal reasons. Newton is the third leading scorer, averaging eight points per game.
Before missing the last two games, Newton started in seven straight games. He is expected to be back for Saturday’s game.
This week, the team will not be playing on Thursday like normal because of the seven-team WAC, resulting in a bye week. Tanner said this week’s bye couldn’t have come at a better time.
“We’ll get back to our defensive principles, remind them [the team] of the things we’re starting to slack on and starting to lose some of the small details that help you win games,” Tanner said.
The Wildcats have now faced every team in the conference once, out of the three times they will play them. On Saturday, they will face the Tarleton State Texans in Stephenville for the second time this season.
The first matchup took place on Jan. 8 when ACU won 84-80. The Texans are currently on a three-game losing streak and in seventh place in the WAC standings entering their game on Wednesday against the University of Texas at Arlington.
Tarleton has the nation’s leading scorer on the team, junior guard Dior Johnson, who averages 24.1 ppg. Johnson came off the bench against ACU, previously scoring 33 points in 33 minutes.
In the previous matchup, the Wildcats were led by strong performances from Hubbard, Rich Smith and Cade Hornecker.
“We’ve got to go in there again and try to figure out a way to do it again,” Tanner said. “I think it’s going to be very different than last game. We’re going to have a totally different game than we had last time.”
