Omaha men’s basketball fell to 3-6 on the season with a 71-55 home loss to Abilene Christian Saturday night at Baxter Arena.
The visiting Wildcats’ physicality and defensive pressure were the difference in the game.
Omaha coach Chris Crutfield, after the game, pointed to the Mavs’ slow start and lack of focus in the first half.
“Really got off to a bad start tonight,” Crutchfield said. “I don’t know what our guys’ mindset was … First half I thought we were sleepwalking. I thought they came out with more physicality than we did. I thought our mindset was wrong the first 10 minutes of the game.”
Abilene Christian held Omaha to 19 first-half points and scored 12 points off of 11 Omaha turnovers to take a 39-19 at the half.
The wildcats held Omaha to just 36.4% shooting and just 5-of-16 from behind the arc in the game. Before tonight, Omaha was shooting 43% from the field and 37% from 3.
“They were getting up and taking the first pass, second pass and third pass away and we were picking up our dribble and jammed up,” Crutchfield said. “We’ve got a lot of work on getting open the next two or three days.”
Not only did Abilene Christian smoother Omaha defensively in the first half, but the Wildcats made 16 of their 28 shots to build the 20-point lead at the break.
Paint Production
Abilene Christian outscored Omaha 28-20 in the paint with their starting forwards going 11-for-22 from the field. Leonardo Bettiol had a team-high 19 points on 8-of-15 shooting and made some tough contested shots in the paint.
“He’s a good player,” Crutchfield said. “They have a good team. They don’t shoot a lot of 3s, but they try to put pressure on the paint.
The Wildcats out-rebounded Omaha 31-27 and had seven offensive rebounds to Omaha’s five. Omaha didn’t get much bench production and scored just three bench points to Abilene Christian’s 19.
Better Second Half
It took 20 minutes for the Omaha offense to get going and by then, it was too late.
“I thought our fight was much better in the second half,” Crutchfield said. “I thought we competed much better in the second half.”
Omaha put together 6-0 run to start the second half, followed by a 7-0 run after the under-12 timeout. The Mavs cut the lead to 10 on two Tony Osburn free throws with 6:20 left but could not close the gap any further.
Osburn scored 19 points in the second half and finished with a game-high 24 points on 8-12 shooting, his second straight 20-point outing.
The Mavericks stay home for their next game on Wednesday in the Big Sky/Summit Challenge when they host Montana State.
