DeAndre Williams posts 26 in debut

Sophomore DeAndre Williams had a big debut for the University of Evansville men’s basketball team, recording 26 points and 9 rebounds to push the Purple Aces to a 79-75 win over Ball State on Saturday evening.

“The points kind of just came to me in the flow of the offense,” Williams explained.  “I was making shots and my teammates were giving me good passes.”

Williams was 11-of-14 from the field and added three assists and two steals.  Sam Cunliffe also had a strong debut, registering 17 points.  He was 3-for-4 from outside and had three helpers.  K.J. Riley had a solid night with 14 points.  Ball State saw Tahjai Teague score 20 points to go along with eight boards.

“We came out a little different than we did against USI.  I am really encouraged by a lot of what we did tonight,” Aces head coach Walter McCarty said.  “We had a lot of guys come in and play a lot of minutes.  Our pace was really good.  We were moving the basketball from side-to-side.  In the first half, we trusted each other and played really connected.”

Making his UE debut, Williams recorded the first five points of the game to give the Aces a 5-2 lead.  Ball State fought back to take its first lead of the night at 10-9 on a bucket by Tahjai Teague at the 14:42 mark.  Seconds later, another Williams field goal put the Aces in front and they were off to the races from there.

From that points until halftime, Evansville went on a 31-8 run to go into the break with a 40-18 lead.  After Williams put UE in front, Sam Cunliffe drained a triple on the break to push the lead to four.  What was an 11-0 run continued with buckets from Artur Labinowicz, Shamar Givance and another from Williams that made it a 20-10 game at the midway point of the half.

UE kept rolling from there.  After the Cardinals cut the deficit to eight points (24-16), the Aces had another nice rally, reeling off the next 13 to take a 37-16.  Marcus Henderson converted his first field goal, grabbing the rebound on a UE miss before hitting the basket.  Williams capped off the run with his second trey.  Ball State ended a scoreless drought of six minutes when Kyle Mallers hit a layup in the final minute, but on the other end, Givance drained UE’s fifth triple in the final seconds to send his squad to the locker room with a 22-point advantage.

Williams finished with 15 points in the half, hitting six of his seven attempts.  He also had a game-high six rebounds in the opening stanza.

K.J. Riley converted an and-one in the opening moments of the second half to make it a 45-20 game, but the Cardinals had a run of their own in mind.  Three buckets in a row, including two triples, made it a 45-28 game three minutes into the half, forcing a UE time out.  Williams’ stellar debut continued as he added his third from outside and his eighth from inside to put Evansville back up by 20 at 57-37 seven minutes in.  He capped that run off with a jumper from just inside the 3-point line at the shot clock buzzer.

Ball State never gave up and battled back as the second half moved along.  With just under 10 minutes left, they got within 16 and with 5:26 on the clock, a triple from Ishmael El-Amin trimmed the Evansville lead to 68-57.  Two more triples finished off a 15-3 run as they made it a 68-63 game.

Noah Frederking helped to muscle the UE lead back to two possessions.  After drawing a charge, he drew a foul on the offensive end and hit both free throws.  Cunliffe added a triple that gave the Aces a 73-63 lead with 3:11 on the clock.  Ball State was not finished as they posted the next six to cut the gap to four a minute later.  Inside the final minute, an and-one by Teague got them within one tally at 75-74.  With 12 seconds left, a UE turnover gave the ball back to the Cardinals, but a missed triple saw UE get the ball back.  The Aces hit four free throws in the final seconds to finish the 79-75 game.

“We played well for 20 minutes, but in the second half, we took our foot off the pedal,” Riley said after the win.  “We knew the only way they could come back was by shooting 3’s and that is what they did.”

Riley also took the positives out of what was a great first half and at the end of the night – a season-opening win.

“We know that if we play like we did in the first half, we can play with anyone.  We just have to keep it up.”

A total of 5,372 fans were in attendance on Saturday.  It was the highest attendance for a season opener since the first-ever game at the Ford Center against Butler in 2011.  The win marked the 100^th for the Purple Aces inside the Ford Center.  The first was the win over the Bulldogs in 2011.

A big one is on tap Tuesday evening for the Aces as they travel to Lexington, Ky. for the first-ever match-up against the University Kentucky.  The Wildcats are expected to be the #1 team in the nation following wins over Michigan State and Eastern Kentucky.  The Spartans entered the season as the top-ranked team in the nation.  Game time is 6 p.m. CT at Rupp Arena.