Game Notes
Two basketball teams that would love to find a victory meet Saturday when the 0-3 University of Evansville Purple Aces take on 0-2 Ball State at 1:00 cst in Muncie. Ball State plays tonight against Georgetown before getting ready for the Aces.
The game can be heard on the UE Radio Network and at wuev.evansville.edu.
STRUGGLES FOR THE ACES...
Evansville is off to an 0-3 start for the first time since the 2003-04 team lost its first four. The Aces under first-year head coach Marty Simmons are coming off an 87-77 loss Tuesday night at Southeast Missouri. SEMO grabbed 20 offensive rebounds and outrebounded the Aces 49-30. The Redhawks also connected on 13 of 28 three-pointers, compared to 7-of-23 shooting behind the arc by Evansville.
...AND EVEN MORE FOR THE CARDINALS
It’s been a difficult start for new Ball State coach Billy Taylor, a 1995 Notre Dame graduate who was the former head coach at Lehigh. Taylor replaced Ronny Thompson, who left Ball State after only one year as head coach. Taylor’s squad has shrunk in size to nine players, and BSU announced Tuesday that leading scorer Anthony Newell is out for six to eight weeks with a foot injury. He was averaging 22.5 of the team’s 59.5 points through the first two games. With Newell sidelined, Ball State is left with seven guards and one forward, and no one taller than 6-4.
THE COMMON FOE
Butler, ranked number 25 nationally by the Associated Press in last Saturday’s 60-47 win at Evansville, played one week earlier at Ball State and beat the Cardinals by an almost identical score, 61-45. Ball State’s other game was an 81-74 overtime loss at home to Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Cardinals play Georgetown tonight (Wednesday) in the third game of a four-game homestand to begin the season. Georgetown was originally scheduled because Ronny Thompson was the Ball State coach at the time. He is the son of legendary Georgetown coach John Thompson.
LONG TIME NO SEE
They are both Indiana colleges, and they’ve played each other 50 times in the past, but Evansville hasn’t played Ball State since the 1978-79 season, when the Cardinals won 63-60 at Muncie. The former Indiana Collegiate Conference rivals will continue their series next season when Ball State comes to Evansville’s Roberts Stadium. Evansville leads the series 36-14, with a 21-2 advantage in games played at Evansville and a 15-12 advantage in games that Ball State hosted.
ACES’ OFFENSE PERKS UP
Evansville was held to 49 and 47 points in its first two games before scoring 77 Tuesday at Southeast Missouri. Junior forward Shy Ely topped his previous career high of 18 points with 23 against the Redhawks, hitting 7 of 17 shots and 8 of 10 free throws. Sophomore Jay Couisnard’s previous career-high was seven points last season against his brother P.J. Couisnard and the Wichita State Shockers. Jay scored 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting and hit two three-pointers for the first time in his career Tuesday against SEMO.
SEVEN STRAIGHT FOR HOLSINGER
Evansville junior guard Jason Holsinger has scored 10 points or more in seven straight games, including all three this season. He was held to a season-low 13 points on 4-for-16 shooting Tuesday at Southeast Missouri. The Redhawks used a box-and-one defense at times to keep Holsinger guarded.
NEWCOMERS UP FRONT
Redshirt freshman center Pieter van Tongeren has started all three games, and another freshman, Clint Hopf, saw 19 minutes of playing time Tuesday after playing a total of three minutes in UE’s first two games. The 6-11 van Tongeren totaled nine points and three rebounds, and the 6-8 Hopf added eight points and four rebounds. Hopf did not go through full practices until recently because of his recovery from last spring’s knee surgery.
COACH MARTY SIMMONS
New Evansville coach Marty Simmons led the Aces to two rounds of the NIT as a senior in 1987-88, when he was the nation’s sixth leading scorer with a 25.9 average. He was a UE assistant coach under Jim Crews for 11 seasons, including three NCAA Tournament years (1992, 1993, 1999) and one NIT year (1994). He spent the past five seasons as head coach at Southern?Illinois-Edwardsville, and led the Cougars to the NCAA Division II Tournament in 2005 and 2006. He was the Great Lakes Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 2005. He is a 1987 Evansville graduate.
