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The University of Evansville women’s basketball team will return home for the first time in over three weeks on Thursday, as the Purple Aces will battle preseason Missouri Valley Conference favorite Creighton in the annual Future Purple Aces Fast B.R.E.A.K. (Basketball Reinforcing Education to Area Kids) Game. Tip-off is set for 11:00 a.m. central time and Thursday’s game can be heard live on 91.5 F.M.-WUEV.
Thursday’s game will serve as an academic field trip for over 1,500 local area school children, as the students will do worksheets involving the sport of basketball and math prior to tip-off. There will also be worksheets involving the game that will be done during the contest as well. The Fast B.R.E.A.K. program is designed to help students apply the concepts of math to real-life situations, while using the sport of basketball.
Evansville (3-11 overall, 0-3 in the MVC)?is coming off of a road trip in which the Purple Aces dropped both ends of the Bradley-Northern Iowa swing. The Braves and Panthers combined to average 87.0 points per game in the two games against UE, as Evansville saw its current losing streak extend to three games. Saturday’s 99-67 loss at Northern Iowa overshadowed one of UE’s top offensive performances of the season, as the Purple Aces shot a season-best 49.1 percent in the loss, including shooting 54.8 percent in the second half. Sophomore guard Jordan Lewis led the way at UNI with a career-high 14 points, while freshman forward Meagan Collins of nearby Boonville High School posted her first double-figure scoring game of the year with 13 points on a perfect 6-of-6 shooting from the floor.
Creighton, meanwhile, will enter Thursday’s game tied for the MVC lead in the standings, as the preseason favorite Bluejays are currently 8-5 and 3-1 in the MVC. The Bluejays will enter Thursday’s game as one of the nation’s top three-point shooting teams, as Creighton currently ranks seventh nationally in three-point field goals per game at 8.5 per contest, while also ranking 34th in three-point accuracy at 36.9 percent. Preseason MVC Player of the Year Megan Neuvirth currently leads three Bluejay players in double-figures with an average of 13.8 points per game. Creighton also enters Thursday’s game as the MVC’s top defensive team, allowing an average of just 60.2 points per game.
Thursday’s game will be a rematch of last year’s State Farm MVC Tournament title game, which was won by UE, 47-45, on Amy Gallagher’s last-second shot. That victory snapped a three-game losing streak by UE against the Bluejays, as Creighton owns a 24-10 overall advantage in the all-time series.
