For the first time since the clinching game of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament Championship game, the University of Evansville men’s basketball team will be back on the floor at the Ford Center as they take on Wabash College beginning at 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Ford Center.
It has already been a great preseason for the Purple Aces, who were picked to finish second this season in the Missouri Valley Conference. It was tied for the highest pick in program history. Seniors D.J. Balentine and Egidijus Mockevicius garnered Preseason All-Conference Team honors while both were nominees for the Senior CLASS Award.
Balentine, the Most Valuable Player of the 2015 CIT, averaged 27.2 points per game in the tournament and finished with 20.1 PPG on the season to tie for 15th in the NCAA. With 19.0 points per game in the regular season, Balentine led the Valley in scoring for the second season in a row. He became just the 12th player since 1956 to lead the league in scoring in consecutive seasons joining the likes of Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson.
Egidijus Mockevicius also led the Valley in rebounding once again with 9.8 per game; the last to lead the league in rebounding in consecutive seasons was Jackie Carmichael of Illinois State in 2012 and 2013. Evansville has had the leading scorer and rebounder in the MVC in back-to-back years; the only other time in conference history that one team has had the leading scorer and rebounder in consecutive seasons came in 1978 and 79 and it was one player to do both – Larry Bird.
Evansville also returns its other three starters from last year – Adam Wing, Blake Simmons and the duo of Duane Gibson and Jaylon Brown. Wing has been a mainstay in the starting lineup for UE since the end of his freshman season. A member of the CIT All-Tournament Team last season, Wing played extremely well in the postseason, draining 22 of his 34 shots to shot 64.7% in the tournament.
Simmons also had a strong postseason, culminating with a 13-point effort in the CIT victory over UT Martin. He also set his career mark in that contest with seven assists. Gibson and Brown split the starts at the point guard position. Making 23 starts last year was Gibson, who will be sporting his high school number – 25 – beginning this season. He led the Aces with 36 steals a season ago. Brown started 13 games last year and saw his free throw shooting improve immensely as he finished the year at 76.7%. Both played in all 36 games.
For the second year in a row, the Purple Aces will face off against Wabash in exhibition action; last year, UE grabbed a 95-50 win over the Little Giants. Wabash is coming off of an 18-9 campaign a season ago in which they won seven of their last nine games before falling to the College of Wooster in NCAC Tournament action. Their top returner is Daniel Purvlicis, who totaled 16.5 points per game in 2014-15.
