 Aces and Braves to meet on Saturday at 1 p.m.
 Part one of the final road trip of the regular season is up next for the University of Evansville men’s basketball team as they travel to Bradley for a 1 p.m. game on Saturday at Carver Arena in Peoria.
Evansville led from wire-to-wire in an 87-70 win over Drake on Tuesday night at the Ford Center. Three UE players finished with 20 or more points, led by Jaylon Brown and Ryan Taylor, who notched 22 apiece. David Howard added a career-high 21 points as he hit all nine free throws. UE shot 57.9% on the night while outrebounding the Bulldogs by a final tally of 36-20. For the night, UE hit 17 out of 18 free throws (94.4%), its best effort of the season.
Brown, Taylor and Howard each finished with 20+ points on Tuesday; it marked the first time three Aces registered 20 or more points in the same game since Matt Webster, Kyle Anslinger and Bradley Strickland had 20 apiece on Dec. 30, 2006 against Bradley.
Tuesday’s win over Drake marked the fourth conference win in a row for the Aces. UE accomplished the feat twice last year and once in the 2010-11 and 2012-13 campaigns. Head coach Marty Simmons is looking for his first 5-game MVC win streak in his tenure as UE’s head coach. The last 5-game streak for UE in MVC play came from January 27 through February 10 1999.
A stellar streak of play continued for David Howard as he set his career mark with 21 points in the win over Drake. A 64.2% free throw shooter on the season, Howard went a perfect 9-for-9 against the Bulldogs; Howard has hit 17 of his last 19 free throws over the last four games (89.5%) after starting the season shooting just 32% (8/25) in the first 24 games this season.
Bradley comes into Saturday’s meeting with a 9-19 overall mark and 4-11 in the Valley. The Braves have dropped nine of their last 10 games, including a 64-61 loss at UNI on Wednesday. Darrell Brown paces his team with 12 points per game; he also leads the team with a total of 76 assists. Donte Thomas sits atop the Bradley list with 6.3 rebounds per game.
In the first meeting of the season, the Braves earned a 74-63 win over UE to move the series to a 26-22 tally in their favor. In games in Peoria, Bradley has been dominant, going 18-5; Evansville has had the upper hand on the road as of late, winning three of the last five match-ups.
