Men’s basketball hangs on for road win at Indiana State
Pozzato and Comer lift UE to victory
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Gabriel Pozzato and Tayshawn Comer both reached the 20-point mark while Josh Hughes recorded a double-double to push the University of Evansville men’s basketball team to a 79-74 win over Indiana State on Wednesday evening at the Hulman Center.
With the win, the Purple Aces earned their 8th Missouri Valley Conference victory, the most for the program since the 2015-16 season. It also ended a 7-game skid for UE against the Sycamores.
“We showed great resilience and maturity tonight. Indiana State has a great program and this is a hard place to win at,” UE head coach David Ragland said following the win. “Our big guys built up confidence early and we were able to get big stops late to finish with the win.”
Pozzato led UE with 22 points while Comer finished with 21. Hughes and Connor Turnbull recorded 15 points apiece. Hughes added a career-high 10 boards on the way to his first double-double.
Picking up right where he left off on Sunday against Valparaiso, Turnbull scored the first two points of the game as the Purple Aces took a 4-0 lead. Josh Hughes added a triple that put UE up 7-3 just over two minutes in. Hughes’ second basket of the evening capped an 11-8 start for the Aces at the 13:43 mark.
Over the next two minutes, Indiana State made its run, scoring the next nine points to go up 17-11. UE regrouped to post the next seven tallies in just over a minute of action to retake an 18-17 edge. Turnbull had the first two baskets during the rally. Just past the halfway mark of the period, the Sycamores found themselves up 19-18.
Evansville took control over the final minutes. Gabriel Pozzato’s first 3-pointer of the game opened a 10-0 run that gave UE a 28-19 lead with 7:22 remaining in the half. Highlighting the stretch was Tayshawn Comer’s pass to Pozzato for an alley oop. ISU cut the deficit to just five at 30-25 inside of the 6-minute mark before the Aces countered once again. Outscoring ISU by a 10-2 margin, UE took its largest lead at 40-27 inside the final four minutes.
Another basket by Hughes matched the 13-point lead in the final minute until a triple in the final seconds cut the ISU deficit to 46-36 at halftime. The Sycamores shot 50% in the half while UE finished at 48.6%. Evansville did its damage in second-chance point, outscoring ISU by a 16-2 margin in the opening stanza.
After ISU knocked down a triple to get within nine, back-to-back field goals by the Aces made it a 13-point game inside of 18 minutes left. The Sycamores chipped away at the deficit, cutting it to 57-51 with 14:18 left in the contest while the Aces countered with four quick points, including a hook shot by Tanner Cuff, to retake the 10-point edge.
With 10:43 left in the game, Indiana State cut the deficit to seven once again and forced an inbound pass by the Aces with two seconds left on the shot clock. Turnbull hit a 3-pointer that put his squad back up by double figures. The lead for UE hovered between 7 and 12 points as UE held a 72-60 lead with 6:17 remaining.
A furious rally by the Sycamores saw them score 11 in a row and 14 of the next 16 to tie the game at 74-74 with just over a minute left. Comer got UE back on track with a layup while a Pozzato dunk in the final seconds put the finishing touches on the 79-74 victory.
Leading the way for ISU was Jaden Daughtry who scored a game-high 23 points. Shooting 52% in the second half, UE finished the game at 49.2% with ISU shooting 43.1%. The Aces also had a 36-31 edge on the glass. UE remains on the road for a 2 p.m. game at UIC on Saturday in Chicago.
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