Aces travel to Louisville for Wade Houston Tipoff Classic
 EVANSVILLE, Ind. – A total of 265 days will have gone by since the last time the University of Evansville men’s basketball team took to the floor, but the wait is finally over as the Purple Aces open the 2020-21 season on Wednesday afternoon against the University of Louisville in the opening game of the Wade Houston Tipoff Classic. The ACC Network will have full coverage of the contest, which gets underway at 3 p.m. CT. UE continues to play in the tournament on Friday with a noon CT game against Prairie View A&M.
Season Openers
– Wednesday will tip off the 102nd season of Aces basketball
– In 101 previous season openers, the Aces are 67-34, including a 79-75 win over Ball State last season at the Ford Center
– UE is in search of its first season-opening road win since a 63-51 win over Western Michigan in 1994
– Since then, the Aces have opened the season on the road just four times, dropping each contest
– The 2016 opener pitted the Aces against the Cardinals inside the KFC Yum! Center with the UL taking a 78-47 win
Connecting the DotsÂ
– There are several dots connecting the Purple Aces and Cardinals as they take to the floor for the 27th time
– UE assistant coach Logan Baumann graduated from Louisville in 2015 but the most unique aspect of his tenure at UL came in the 2012-13 NCAA Championship season where he started the year as a student manager before walking onto the squad
– Graduate student Jax Levitch is a native of Louisville, graduating from Trinity High School; his brother David played in 88 games for the Cardinals between 2013 and 2017
– Aces head coach Todd Lickliter saw one of his top coaching moments come against the Cardinals – his Butler team defeated the 14th-ranked Louisville squad by a 79-71 final to punch their ticket to the 2003 Sweet 16
– Louisville head coach Chris Mack began his collegiate career at Evansville, playing for the Aces in the 1988-89 and 1989-90 campaigns
– Mack played in 63 games while making 44 starts for the Aces; he averaged 10.1 points per game as a sophomore, scoring his top tally of 22 points against Siena; he transferred to Xavier for his final two seasons
And there’s more…Â
– The series between Louisville and Evansville goes way past the basketball court
– As the story goes – after UE defeated the Cardinals by a 59-39 final on February 6, 1925, UL coach Fred Enke told UE coach John Harmon “You didn’t have four Aces up your sleeve, you had five!â€
– Harmon quoted that to the Evansville Courier and the nickname “Aces†immediately stuck, replacing the previous nickname “Pioneersâ€
Setting the Scene –
This year’s version of the Aces features seven returners (two regular starters) and seven newcomers from the 2019-20 team
– Evansville looks to end a 19-game losing streak, which is the longest in school history
– The last win for the Aces came on Dec. 21, 2019 – a 78-76 overtime win against Murray State
– Despite being roughly 90 minutes apart, the Aces and Cardinals will meet for just the second time since 1957; the only other meeting in between came in the 2016-17 season opener
Continuing the success
– While late February and early March can be a time where the daily grinds of the season can take a toll, the exact opposite was the case for Evan Kuhlman
– Through the first 19 games of last season, Kuhlman posted 2.9 points, 1.6 rebounds, 12.8 minutes and shot 18.8% from outside
– From the January 22 game against Drake through the end of the season, Kuhlman was on fire averaging 9.0 points, 4.4 rebounds and 30.0 minutes while draining 38.9% of his long range attempts in the last 13 contests
– He scored eight or more points in eight of the final 10 games of the season
Scouting the Opponent
– Louisville is coming off of a strong 24-7 campaign last year which included a 15-5 mark in the ACC, tying them for second place
– It marked the top conference win tally for the Cardinals in their six seasons in the ACC
– The Cardinals return two of their top six and three of their top nine from a season ago
– Leading the way for the returners are Malik Williams and David Johnson, who recorded 8.5 and 6.3 points per game, respectively
– Among the newcomers added to the mix is graduate student Carlik Jones, who registered 20.0 points, 5.5 assists and 5.1 rebounds last season while leading Radford to a 21-11 mark and a Big South regular-season crown
- INFO: For all of the latest information on University of Evansville athletics, visit GoPurpleAces.com or follow the program on Twitter via @UEAthletics.
- DONATE: For information on giving to UE Athletics or its individual athletics programs, visit the DONATE tab on the top of GoPurpleAces.com.
TICKETS: To purchase tickets for University of Evansville athletics events, log on to GoPurpleAces.com and click on the TICKETS tab on top of the page.
