Know Your Iowa Basketball Foes: Abilene Christian

Abilene Christian, which plays at Iowa this afternoon, led Maryland 30-29 at halftime Wednesday night.

Yes, that Maryland. The one from the ACC that is headed to the Big Ten next season, the one that has a national-championship men's basketball banner in its arena.

Abilene Christian, returning to Division I this season after spending the last 31 years in D-II, led the Terrapins at the break, and led 44-38 with 14:12 left in the game. Then, this:

“I thought Abilene Christian was great the first half; I thought we were not very good,” Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said. “I take the blame for that. I don't know what I did wrong. I didn't not have us ready to play. To play that way is not good. We did not put a lot [of preparation] into Abilene Christian. Maybe our guys thought I didn't think Abilene Christian was any good by doing that. Obviously I didn't get them prepared to play.”

“I thought our guys competed,” Abilene Christian Coach Joe Golding said. “And it was our first time in a big arena like this. Each game, our competition went up. Each arena got bigger and louder. And then [on] TV. We were scared to death. If you would have seen us yesterday, we were all taking pictures. Hopefully in a couple of years we won't do that. We'll be used to it.”

ACU is a team with only one holdover player from last season. It has eight junior college transfers. It's 0-3, with losses to Duquesne (94-75) and St. Bonaventure (75-47). This will be its fourth game in eight days, and all will have been held a long way from Abilene, Texas. This, in fact, is the first one the Wildcats are playing outside of the Eastern time zone.

Abilene Christian's opponents have shot 47.3 percent from the field to the Wildcats' 33.7. The opponents have outrebounded the Wildcats by 12 per game. At Maryland, ACU's non-starters played a total of 48 minutes and didn't score a point.

There are 351 Division I men's basketball teams. Twenty-two of them are in Texas. Abilene Christian is definitely one of them.

Next Friday, ACU plays Western New Mexico. The following day, it plays Northern New Mexico. Its four December games are against Hillsdale Baptist, Open Bible College (two), and Bacone College. In January, it will begin play in the D-I Southland Conference, the league in which it helped found a half-century ago.

Maryland Eastern Shore wasn't competitive against the Hawkeyes on Thursday night, to the surprise of no one on the planet. Abilene Christian, a road-weary, much-shorter team than Iowa, shouldn't be, either.

Michigan is playing at Iowa State this afternoon. It's fair to say that will be a more-compelling game than the one in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. So should every game played today in a health club or on someone's driveway.