Game Notes
It's back on the road for the University of Evansville men's basketball team this weekend. The 1-3 Purple Aces play their third straight away from home Saturday at 6:00 CST against the Buffalo Bulls of the Mid-American Conference. The game can be heard on the UE Radio Network.
QUIET WEEK FOR THE ACES...BUSY FOR THE BULLS
Saturday’s 6:00 CST game at the University At Buffalo will be Evansville’s first since last Saturday’s 51-50 victory at Ball State. It will be the third this week for the Bulls. They beat Canisius on Tuesday, 68-59, and host Tulane on Thursday before playing their third home game in five days on Saturday against the Aces. One aspect that will help Buffalo is depth. Coach Reggie Witherspoon has 11 players this season averaging at least 10 minutes of playing time per game. The top nine scorers average between 5.3 and 9.3 points per game.
COACH’S WIN #2 WILL BE WIN #100
Head coach Marty Simmons is one victory away from the 100th in his head coaching career. His record going into the Buffalo game is 99-76, and includes one year at Wartburg (Iowa)?University, five seasons at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, and four games in his first season at Evansville. Simmons’ coaching record after his first two seasons as a head coach was 19-32. In his four full seasons since then, his record was 79-41.
MARTY’S BACKGROUND
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. Simmons is a 1987 Evansville graduate.
WIN NUMBER ONE
Evansville used a comeback in the final minutes on the road last Saturday to earn the Aces’ first victory. Evansville was down by nine points at Ball State with less than five minutes to play, at 47-38, but four different players scored for UE in the 13-3 stretch run–Shy Ely (4), Pieter van Tongeren (4), Jason Holsinger (3) and Nate Garner (2). It was van Tongeren’s basket with 10 seconds remaining that won the game.
UE’S NUMBERS
It’s not been easy for the Aces to score points, with an average of 56 per game, but they did get plenty of balance in their offense last week. In the 87-77 loss at Southeast Missouri and 51-50 win at Ball State, Shy Ely led the way with a total of 32 points. Darin Granger (21), Jason Holsinger (18), Pieter van Tongeren (18), Jay Couisnard (14) and Clint Hopf (10) all totaled 10 or more.
ONE MORE ON THE ROAD
Evansville shuffles off to Buffalo on Friday, and concludes the longest road trip of the season–three games–with Saturday night’s game. After Saturday, the Aces play five of their next six games at home. UE gets to play at its own Roberts Stadium for five straight weekends beginning Dec. 8.
ABOUT THE BULLS
Now 3-3 heading into Thursday’s game against Tulane, Buffalo has wins this season over Ohio Valley 89-82, South Florida 76-69, and Canisius 68-59. All three losses have come on the road, to Connecticut 82-57, Niagara 80-63, and 17th ranked Pittsburgh 92-45. The leading scorer is 6-4 junior Greg Gamble at 9.3 points per game. The top scorer in each of the last two games has been 6-9 junior center Vadim Fedotov, with 13 at Pitt and 17 against Canisius. Saturday’s game will match up two European centers, with Munich, Germany’s Fedotov going against 6-11 freshman Pieter van Tongeren of Evansville, a native of The Netherlands.
LAST YEAR’S UE-BUFFALO GAME
Evansville took a surprisingly easy 74-44 victory over Buffalo last November in the championship game of the three-day America’s Youth Classic at Roberts Stadium. Evansville lost to Miami (Fla.) 74-69 and beat Cleveland State 63-49 in the Aces’ other two games. The Bulls beat Cleveland State 77-73 and beat Miami 60-57 in their other two games at Roberts Stadium. Last year’s game was the first ever between Evansville and Buffalo.
