Aces and Redbirds to battle on Thursday at the Ford CenterÂ
The stakes are getting high as we move to the stretch run of the season as the University of Evansville men’s basketball team welcomes Illinois State to the Ford Center in a battle for second place in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Both squads enter the game with identical 8-4 conference marks and will battle it out for sole possession of the #2 spot in the league in an 8 p.m. game that will be carried live on the CBS Sports Network.
Evansville scored the first three points of the game and never trailed, taking down Missouri State by a final of 83-64 on Saturday at the Ford Center. Jaylon Brown led Evansville with 19 points, tying his career high. He connected on 3 of his 5 3-point attempts and all four free throws in the win. D.J. Balentine scored 18 points, all in the second half, to break Colt Ryan’s program scoring mark; Balentine now has 2,280 in his career. Willie Wiley totaled 8 points over 15 minutes of play as he hit 4 out of 5 free throws.
There is a new scoring leader in University of Evansville history – D.J. Balentine. With 18 points against the Bears, Balentine passed Colt Ryan’s mark of 2,279 points. Balentine now has 2,280 points in his career, which has seen him play 130 games. The senior has moved into 6th in MVC history and 13th in Indiana Division I basketball history.
Should D.J. Balentine lead the MVC in scoring again, the Aces will have had the leading scorer in the league in four of the last eight years; Balentine will have led three years in a row while Shy Ely led the Valley in 2008-09. It would also make UE have a top two scorer in the league in seven out of eight seasons and a top three scorer in all 8 years.
If Egidijus Mockevicius can keep his average of 14 rebounds, he would be the first since Xavier McDaniel of Wichita State to average that many; McDaniel notched 14.8 per game in 1985. The last MVC player to average at least 10 boards was Joe Breakenridge of UNI, who had 10.5/game in 2001. Mockevicius currently stands at 350 rebounds this season, he is just 20 away from moving into a tie for 36th in MVC history. Wes Unseld holds the single-season rebounding mark with 533 in 1966-67 while the last players to make the top 36 list were Xavier McDaniel & Benoit Benjamin (Creighton), who each had 451 in 1984-85.
On the heels of a 58-53 home win over Wichita State, Illinois State heads to Evansville with a 14-11 overall mark and 8-4 in Missouri Valley Conference play. Since falling to the Purple Aces on January 15, Illinois State has won five out of their last six games. DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell is the leading scorer for the Redbirds, averaging 14.6 points per game; he is second on the squad with 5 rebounds. MiKyle McIntosh has notched 11.1 points while Deontae Hawkins (10.6) and Paris Lee (10.5) also average double figures. In the win over the Shockers, Lee posted 19 points while Hawkins finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
