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You have to go back more than 10 years to find the kind of run that the University of Evansville is making in the Missouri Valley Conference right now.  The next leg in the race comes Saturday afternoon at 2:05 CST, when fourth place UE (13-9, 7-5) plays sixth place Creighton (14-10, 6-6) at the 17,000-seat Qwest Center Omaha.

The Aces on Wednesday pulled off their fourth straight Valley win for the first time since 1999-00.  Their 7-5 league record is also UE’s best at this stage since the 1999-00 team started out 7-5.

The Aces now have hopes for their first winning record in MVC play since the 1998-99 team won the outright championship with a 13-5 record.  The ‘98-99 season is also the last time UE won more than four consecutive Valley games.  That team had a five-game and a six-game winning streak in the league. The last time Evansville had a five-game winning streak of any kind came in 1999-00, when UE reeled off nine in a row on its way to an 18-12 record.

No team has dominated Evansville more in the past decade than Creighton.  The Bluejays have won 11 of the last 12 and 16 of the last 19 against Evansville.  Creighton has won 11 in a row in Omaha against the Aces.
 
Balance and bench play have been Evansville’s strengths during this stretch in which the Aces have won four straight and six out of seven.  In Wednesday’s win over Missouri State, the top seven scorers had between 9 and 12 points. Sophomores Troy Taylor (12 points) and Lewis Jones (10) came off the bench and tied their career highs on Wednesday. For Jones, it was his second straight game with 10 points.

Evansville’s three seniors have also been a big part of this surge. Kavon Lacey has scored 31 points in his last three games, the most in any three-game span of his career.  Lacey also leads UE in assists.  Center Pieter van Tongeren has shot better than 50% in nine straight games and continues to lead the league in field goal percentage at 67 percent, the third best mark in league history.  Clint Hopf is a candidate for the MVC All-Bench Team.  He had six points and eight rebounds against Missouri State on Wednesday, and is shooting 57 percent.

Leading rebounder and second leading scorer Kenneth Harris missed Wednesday’s game after suffering a concussion last Saturday against Southern Illinois.  He will be evaluated again Friday.  Harris’s 7.0 rebounds per game are twice as many as number two rebounder Colt Ryan.