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The first meeting in men’s basketball between the 2-3 Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State University and the 2-1 Purple Aces of the University of Evansville takes place on Thanksgiving Eve at Murfreesboro, Tenn. at 7:00 CST.  Evansville was scheduled to play at Middle Tennessee on Dec. 14, 1977, but the airplane carrying the Aces to the game crashed soon after takeoff from Dress Regional Airport in Evansville on the evening of Dec. 13, killing all aboard.  A memorial stands in the middle of the UE campus to honor those who perished.

•Wednesday’s game is the first of two within a month between MTSU and UE.  The Blue Raiders come to Roberts Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 18 for a 2:05 CST game. Evansville played a non-conference opponent twice in the same season most recently in 2006-07, losing at Lipscomb 67-64 in the season opener and then beating Lipscomb at Roberts Stadium five weeks later, 80-73.

•The MTSU game is the second of four consecutive road games for Evansville.  The Aces play 2010 NCAA Tournament runnerup Butler on Saturday, then take a week off before traveling to Colorado Springs to play the Air Force Academy Dec. 5 in the Missouri Valley-Mountain West Challenge.  This is the first time Evansville has played four straight road games since 2003-04, when the Aces played at Western Kentucky, Purdue, Indiana State and Northern Iowa.

•Middle Tennessee played four times between last Wednesday and Sunday.  The final three came on consecutive days in the Global Sports Hoops Showcase at Auburn, Ala., where the Blue Raiders lost to Campbell 97-90, beat Samford 68-55 and lost to host Auburn 68-66.  Senior guard James Washington scored 25 against Auburn, and leads the Blue Raiders with an 18.0 scoring average.  He is one of two starters returning from MTSU’s 2009-10 Sun Belt Conference championship team.

•Evansville has used the same starting lineup in all three regular season games and both exhibitions: Pieter van Tongeren at center, Kenneth Harris at forward, Kavon Lacey at guard, and guard/forward combo players Colt Ryan and Denver Holmes. Those five also lead the Aces in minutes played, followed closely by guards Ned Cox and Troy Taylor.

•Kenneth Harris, a 6-6 junior forward who played the past two years at John A. Logan College in Illinois, is now the leading scorer (13.3), rebounder (7.0) and shot blocker (1.5) for the Purple Aces.  He almost picked up his first double-double Sunday at Indiana, with nine points and 10 rebounds.  Harris also blocked four shots. 

•Sophomore Colt Ryan is now 6-for-10 from three-point range this season after hitting three of five in each of the last two games.  As a team, Evansville hit 5 of 12 on Sunday for 41.7 percent, lifting the season percentage to 38.2 percent.

•Balanced scoring has been a plus for Evansville early in the year. Behind leading scorers Kenneth Harris and Colt Ryan, the Aces have five players averaging between 7.7 and 7.0 points per game.  Denver Holmes, Ned Cox, Pieter van Tongeren, Jordan Jahr and Clint Hopf have all scored between 21 and 23 points in Evansville’s first three games.

•Senior center Pieter van Tongeren is now 11-for-15 from the floor for 73.3 percent shooting after hitting 5 of 8 shots Sunday at Indiana.  van Tongeren’s 10 points and six rebounds against the Hoosiers were season highs.  For his career, van Tongeren is a 53 percent shooter, with 174 field goals in 331 attempts.
Full Game Notes