ABILENE, Texas – The UT Arlington men's basketball team couldn't find an answer for the hot shooting of Abilene Christian on Saturday night as the Wildcats claimed an 84-68 win inside Moody Coliseum.
 
Kyron Gibson knocked down a season-high four 3-pointers – all of which came in the first 13 minutes – on his way to a game- and season-best 20 points to pace UTA. Shemar Wilson added 12 points and four rebounds for the Mavs, and Marion Humphrey came off the bench to tally 10 points.
 
Typically stout defensively, UTA struggled mightily on that end Saturday as the Mavericks surrendered season highs in points (84), field goal percentage and makes (63.3, 31-49), 3-point percentage (58.8, 10-17) and assists (20).
 
A pair of big scoring runs early in both halves by ACU keyed the difference in the game. UTA held a 6-2 lead not even four minutes into the contest before the Wildcats responded with an extended 20-3 stretch to create a 22-9 lead near the midway point of the 1st half.
 
After the Mavs were able to cut that margin all the way down to just four late in the half, ACU commenced the 2nd half in similar fashion as the 1st and used a 13-2 run to open up its biggest lead of the night to that point, 49-31, with 15 minutes to play.
 
From that juncture, UTA trailed by as much as 25 as the Mavs saw their two-game winning streak in league play come to an end.
 
BOX SCORE NUGGETS

• With the loss, UTA drops to 7-14 overall and 2-6 in the WAC, while ACU improves to 10-10 and 2-5.
• Chendall Weaver just missed getting into double digits as he registered eight points and corralled a game-high-tying seven rebounds for the Mavs.
• Montez Young Jr. continued his recent strong play with six points and three rebounds.
• Brandyn Talbot came off the bench to notch five points.
• UTA shot 45 percent (23-51) from the floor – including 56 percent (15-27) in the 2nd half – and 47 percent (8-17) from beyond the arc.
• ACU missed just four shots (16-20) from the floor in the 2nd half – an 80-percent field goal clip.
• Airion Simmons led a quartet of ACU double-figure scorers with 17.
• UTA had just one occurrence of a player scoring 20 points in a game this year prior to Thursday (Weaver: 20 versus Southwestern on Nov. 12), and now it has two in the last two games as Aaron Cash tallied 20 on Thursday.
• Gibson was responsible for all nine of UTA's points in the first 12 minutes until Weaver knocked down a pair of free throws exactly at the 8-minute mark.
• UTA utilized the same starting lineup for the third-consecutive game: Gibson, Weaver, Pedro Castro, Aaron Cash and Wilson.

QUOTABLE
"ACU was just the more physical, tougher team tonight – they had a real will to win. We tried a lot of different things to try and stymie their runs, but they just shot the ball so well and we did a poor job defending them."
– UTA Head Coach Greg Young
 

GAME FLOW
Gibson gave UTA the 6-2 lead not even four minutes into the contest, but after that the Mavs offense stalled out as ACU went on a 15-0 run to take a 17-6 lead at the midway point of the half.
 
Gibson's third triple of the 1st half paused the Wilcats surge momentarily, but ACU was unfazed and added five more points to go ahead by its largest margin of 13, 22-9, with just over eight minutes remaining in the half.
 
A 7-0 spurt by UTA in 60 seconds carved into the deficit, and the Mavs continued to whittle that down until they got it all the way to four, 29-25, inside of four minutes to intermission. However, a late push by the hosts gave them a 36-27 halftime lead.
 
UTA allowed ACU to shoot 52 percent (15-29) from the floor in the opening 20 minutes while connecting at just a 33-percent rate (8-24) as the Mavs gave the ball away 11 times.
 
Unfortunately for the Mavs, the cold start to the 2nd half resulted in a 49-31 scoreline after a 10-0 ACU run. The advantage swelled to 20, 65-45, as Simmons delivered a four-point play at the halfway point of the stanza and got even larger from there as UTA could get no closer than 16 the rest of the evening.
 
THIS AND THAT

• This was UTA's lone road game in a five-game stretch as the Mavs have their next three at home.
• UTA and ACU were both founding members of the Southland Conference in 1963. UTA remained in the league until 2012; ACU left the league in 1973 to join the Division-II Lone Star Conference before re-joining the Southland and D-I in 2013, and the WAC in 2021.
• This was the 30th all-time meeting between UTA and ACU, but the first in Abilene since 1973; the four previous matchups had all been contested in Arlington.
• The WAC is currently ranked by KenPom as the 12th-best conference (out of 32) in the nation.

NEXT UP
UTA will return to the College Park Center for a three-game homestand beginning on Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 7 p.m. against California Baptist. Among the promotions for Wednesday's game include:

• Military Appreciation Night: All current and former military receive two (2) free tickets using the promo code HERO at utatickets.com/promo (additional tickets: $5 each).
• Superhero Night: For only $10, fans can get one (1) game ticket and one (1) UTA Superhero t-shirt using the promo code SUPERHERO at utatickets.com/promo.

FOLLOW ALONG
For updates, behind-the-scenes photos, videos and more engaging and personal content, be sure to follow the men's basketball program on Twitter (@UTAMavsMBB), Instagram (@UTAMavsMBB) and Facebook (/UTAMavsMBB).