Back in March, the Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball teams that finished in the bottom four were Evansville, Indiana State, Drake and Illinois State. Three of those four sit atop the league right now, and hopefully Marty Simmons will lead the Aces there before too long. Evansville is 5-9 overall and still looking for its first MVC victory going into Saturday night's 7:05 CST game at Illinois State. The Redbirds are 12-3 and tied with Drake at 4-0 in the Valley. Saturday's game will be televised as an MVC TV Game of the Week, and is also available on the UE Radio Network (WUEV FM (91.5), WJLT FM (105.3), WSJD FM (100.5) and WNTC FM (103.9). THE UE-ILSU SERIES: HOME TEAM WINNING In each of the last three seasons, the home team has been the winner when Evansville has played Illinois State. The Aces most recently won at Redbird Arena on Feb. 25, 2004. Illinois State’s most recent win at Evansville came on Feb. 13, 2002. Going into Saturday night’s game, Illinois State leads the series 21-13. Evansville has won seven of the last 11 against the Redbirds. PLAYING THE BEST By the end of Saturday, Evansville and Southern Illinois will be the only MVC teams to have played Drake, Illinois State and Indiana State this season. Those three are a combined 11-1, and are the top three teams in the league. Last March, those three and Evansville were the bottom four that had to play in the first round of the State Farm MVC Tournament. HARD TO FIND A VETERAN ON THIS TEAM Evansville won four out of five non-conference games in December, but the Aces have lost their first four Valley games since then. The Aces are one of the youngest teams in the MVC under first-year coach Marty Simmons, with Victor Gomez the only senior. Jason Holsinger and Shy Ely are the only juniors who contributed last season, and Holsinger is the only member of this team who finished among the Aces’ top four scorers last season. NON-CONFERENCE VS. MVC GAMES Jason Holsinger, Pieter van Tongeren and Victor Gomez are averaging more points in conference games than they did in non-conference games. However, a couple numbers jump out. Evansville allowed only 61 points in going 5-5 in non-conference games, but MVC opponents are averaging 70 points against the Aces. Evansville is shooting just 35 percent in MVC games after shooting 45 percent through the first 10 games. ONE STAT THAT MATTERS The Aces are 5-1 this season when they shoot a higher field goal percentage than the opposition, and 0-8 when they don’t. Creighton’s low 42 percent shooting on Wednesday was still higher than Evansville’s 38 percent. FRONT-COURT FRESHMEN Redshirt freshman center Pieter van Tongeren ranks third in the league among newcomers in rebounding (5.5) and fifth in scoring (7.6). Piet has struggled in the last two games, but 6-8 freshman Clint Hopf has helped out. Hopf had a career-high 12 points and 7 rebounds Sunday against Drake, and then totaled 4 points and a career-high 11 rebounds Wednesday at Creighton. FORWARD THINKING Two of the Aces’ primary forwards, co-captain Shy Ely and junior college transfer Nate Garner, have been bottled up by MVC opponents. Ely averaged 12.8 points in the 10 non-conference games, but only 6.5 in league games. Garner’s scoring has dropped from 7.5 in non-conference games to 3.5 in the four MVC games. PRETTY GOOD ON AND OFF THE COURT Guard Jason Holsinger is UE’s number one scorer, and maybe the number one student. He produced a perfect 4.0 GPA in the recent semester, giving the junior a 3.89 GPA through his first five semesters. Holsinger heads into Saturday’s game with 909 career points. His 191 career 3-pointers are already the sixth most in UE history. COACH MARTY SIMMONS Evansville’s Dec. 5 victory over Princeton was the 100th in first-year coach Marty Simmons’ career. Simmons goes into Saturday’s game with a career record of 103-81. He was head coach one year at Wartburg (Iowa) University and five years at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, compiling a record of 98-73 in those six years. Simmons played two years at UE after transferring from Indiana University, and led the Aces to a conference championship in 1987 and the second round of the NIT in 1988, when he was the nation’s sixth leading scorer at 25.9. He was an assistant coach at UE for 11 years under head coach Jim Crews, and helped lead UE to three NCAA Tournaments (1992, 1993, 1999) and one NIT?(1994).