Men's College Basketball: Abilene Christian fends off UTEP, spoils Joe Golding's return

Brette Tanner had mixed emotions about his Abilene Christian Wildcats’ 88-82 victory over UTEP on Sunday afternoon at Moody Coliseum.

It was a big win for the Wildcats, who had lost four of their last five games. But it came at the expense of a good friend — Joe Golding, who was Tanner’s boss for eight seasons before taking the UTEP job following the 2020-21 season.

“I don’t enjoy playing against my best friend,” said Tanner, who took over the ACU men’s basketball program after Golding’s departure. “I grew up with two sisters. Never had a brother. That dude is like a brother. But, right now, I’m going to enjoy this. … What a great win for Abilene Christian University and those players in that locker room. Just fired up for them.”

While ACU still has three players on the team who played for Golding, it was another guy who spoiled his return. Hunter Jack Madden hit two 3-pointers in the final 2:50. The second gave the Wildcats an 80-75 lead with 2:10 left, and, after UTEP's Zid Powell missed a jumper, Dibba made a layup at the other end to all but seal the win with 1:25 to go.

The Wildcats hit six of their last eight free throws — the last four by Madden — to finish off the Miners.

Madden had missed his previous three 3-point attempts, including two in the second half, before finally hitting two clutch shots when the Wildcats needed them.

“Hunter’s two 3s were huge,” Tanner said. “He missed a couple. I just told him, ‘Shoot again. Shoot the next one. You’re a good shooter, man. That’s what shooters do. You want to get out of a slump, you shoot the ball.’ Without those two 3s, obviously we don’t win the game.”

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No happy return

It was a tough loss for Golding, who approached the game as anything but a homecoming.

“It was a business trip, and both teams were competing," Golding said. "They just made more plays down the stretch than we did. They were tougher than us the last four minutes and made some toughness plays. No. 21 (Madden) hit two big shots, and that was the difference in the game.”

Golding, a former ACU point guard (1994-98), was the Wildcats’ head coach for 10 seasons. He led the program during its transition from Division II to Division I.

The Wildcats won two Southland Conference titles (2019 and 2021), going 71-23 his last three years with the program.

ACU made its first NCAA Division I tournament appearance in 2019 — losing to Kentucky 79-44.

Two years later, the Wildcats stunned Texas 53-52 in the first round of the NCAA tournament before falling to UCLA.

Free throws negate turnovers

Ali Abdou Dibba led ACU (5-6) with 19 points, and Madden followed with 18. Leonardo Bettitol and Immanuel Allen added 14 and 10 respectively off the bench for the Wildcats.

Tae Hardy led UTEP (6-5) with a game-high 22 points before fouling out late in the game. Powell had 14, and Calvin Solomon had 11 off the bench.

The Miners outscored ACU 21-12 off turnovers — forcing the Wildcats into 23 turnovers. UTEP had 15 turnovers.

But ACU hit 34-of-48 free throws, while the Miners were 25-of-36 from the free-throw line.

Surprising offense

Both coaches came into the game expecting a physical, low-scoring game. It was physical, but not low scoring.

“We both were attacking the rim at will,” Tanner said. “We saw how the game was going to be called. I think the officials were pretty consistent. If you were attacking the rim, they were going to reward you for that. We did a much better job of that in the second half.”

Golding, whose team led 41-38 at halftime, wasn’t happy with his team’s defense.

“I think both teams knew we had to get out and push, because it was going to be so hard to score in the half court,” Golding said. “It ended up being a track meet, kind of up and down. Both teams struggled defensively, at least I know we did.”

The Miners, who led for only 1:36 of the game, led 70-67 with 6:03 left in the contest, but Dibba’s jumper with 5:36 to go put ACU on top 71-70 for good.

The Wildcats pushed their lead to three, but it was a one-point game when Madden hit his first of two treys to spark ACU.

While unhappy with the 23 turnovers, many of which Tanner said were unforced, he thought his team took care of the ball down the stretch.

“We just told them in the timeout, you’re going to have to take care of the ball and we’re going to have to ramp up the defensive pressure. And I think we did that," Tanner said.

Tough Challenge

The game was played as part of the Western Athletic Conference-Conference USA Challenge and scheduled by the two leagues.

“That dude (Golding) is my brother. Our families are close,” Tanner said. “So, this was no fun. We would never schedule this on purpose by ourselves.”

And it wasn’t just Golding who Tanner felt bad for Sunday evening but several others on the UTEP bench.

UTEP assistant Bryen Spriggs and strength coach Brandon Decker were on Golding’s staff at ACU with Tanner.

Miners' grad assistant Reggie Miller played for both at ACU as well, including Tanner’s first season as head coach when the Wildcats went 25-11 and reached the WAC tournament finals.

“There’s like 19 pictures on my desk of Reggie Miller,” Tanner said. “There’s a lot of people on that other sideline that I feel for because I know what it feels like when you’re not on the right side of it. But at the end of the day, I’m more happy for our guys and our place.”

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Abilene Christian spoils Joe Golding's return in win over UTEP