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EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The University of Evansville women’s basketball team will begin a three-game road swing this Thursday at Bradley in Peoria, Ill., before traveling to Cedar Falls, Iowa to take on Northern Iowa Saturday.  The Purple Aces are slated to take on the Braves a 6 p.m. at the Renaissance Coliseum and the Panthers at 7 p.m. at the McLeod Center.
 
Evansville (7-11, 5-2 MVC) split a pair of home games last weekend against Missouri State and Wichita State, downing the Lady Bears, 77-53, Friday before the Shockers ended UE’s four-game winning streak with a 49-45 win Sunday.  Redshirt sophomore Khristian Hart led the Aces with a career-high 28 points in their win over MSU and senior Samantha Heck notched her third double-double of the year with 15 points and 10 boards in the loss to WSU.
 
As a team, Evansville ranks second the Missouri Valley Conference in free throw percentage at 75.2 percent and lead the conference with a 79.9 percent clip in league contests.  The Aces have also been the Valley’s best rebounding team in conference action with a league-best +6.1 rebounding margin, while holding opponents to just 31.1 rebounds per outing in MVC play.
 
Hart leads UE offensively with a 14.3 points per game average and is averaging a team-best 15.7 points per contest in Valley matchups.  Heck and sophomore Mallory Ladd are also averaging in double figures for the Aces, pouring in 13.6 and 13.2 points per outing, respectively.  Ladd has been the squad’s top rebounder with a 9.8 average and pulled down a career-high 14 boards in her last outing against Wichita State.  Heck and Ladd have also played a big part in Evansville’s success from the charity stripe, as Heck ranks 24th nationally among qualified players with a 93.8 percent mark and Ladd has knocked down 49 of her 51 attempts from the foul line (96.1%).
 
Bradley (7-11, 1-6 MVC) enters Thursday’s tilt having lost seven of its last eight games, including its last three.  The Braves fell in both of their outings last weekend, suffering a 66-62 setback at Drake, prior to a 79-67 loss at Creighton.  Three BU players scored in double figures against the Bluejays, as Catie O’Leary scored a team-high 13 points off the bench and Brooke Bisping recorded her first career double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, but CU knocked down 14 of its 26 three-point attempts and held Bradley to a 36.7 percent shooting percentage.
 
The Braves are one of the Valley’s top scoring team’s, averaging 71.4 points per contest and lead the league with a 78.4 percent free throw percentage, but they surrender 72.9 points per game, a mark that ranks eighth in the league.  BU also owns a +2.1 rebounding margin and averages 9.3 steals per contest. 
 
Shronda Butts leads Bradley in scoring (13.4 ppg) and has distributed a team-best 69 assists.  O’Leary is the Braves’ second-leading scoring (11.6 ppg) and leads the team in rebounding at 7.4 boards per outing.  Kelsey Budd averages in double figures at 10.9 points per game and averages a team-best 31.3 minutes per contest.
 
Bradley returns eight letterwinners and three starters from last year’s squad that finished 18-16 overall and eighth in the final MVC regular-season standings with a 7-11 mark in league play.  The Braves are under the direction of first-year head coach Michael Brooks, who owns a 12-36 record in his two-year head coaching career.
 
Northern Iowa (8-11, 3-4 MVC) will host Southern Illinois Thursday, before opening the month of February by welcoming Evansville Saturday.  The Panthers dropped a pair of road games to Creighton and Drake last weekend, dropping a 54-40 decision to the Bluejays, before falling, 63-55, to the Bulldogs.  Jacqui Kalin recorded a double-double for UNI in the loss, posting a game-high 22 points and 11 rebounds.  Amber Kirschbaum added 10 points off the bench and was the only other Northern Iowa player in double figures.
 
The Panthers rank near the bottom of the league in a majority of offensive categories, as they are seventh in scoring (59.7 ppg), ninth in field goal percentage (37.5%) and 10th in assists (11.2 apg).  However, UNI is third in the Valley in three-point shooting percentage (33.2%) and ranks second in the conference in three-point percentage defense (28.0%).
 
Kalin, the Valley’s leading scorer, leads Northern Iowa’s scoring efforts by a wide margin at 18.1 points per game, over 10 points per outing more than the team’s second leading scorer, Jen Keitel, who is scoring 7.9 points per contest.  Kalin is also the league’s top free throw shooter at 95.1 percent and leads the Panthers on glass with 5.7 rebounds per game.
 
UNI returns just six letterwinners and two starters from last season’s squad that finished 19-15 overall and finished in a tie for fifth in the final MVC regular-season standings with a 9-9 conference record.  Northern Iowa is under the direction of seventh-year head coach Tanya Warren, who is 95-85 during her tenure at UNI.
 
Bradley leads the all-time series with Evansville, 21-16, as the two teams split a pair of games last season.  The Aces posted a 71-59 victory at the Ford Center, before the Braves earned an 82-64 victory on their home floor later in the year.
 
Northern Iowa holds a 22-18 advantage in the series with UE and has won the last eight meetings.  Evansville’s last win over the Panthers came in 2008, when the Aces defeated UNI, 79-56, in the MVC Tournament.