Game Notes

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Looking to continue its two-game MVC winning streak, the University of Evansville men’s basketball team travels to Cedar Falls, Iowa to face Northern Iowa on Wednesday evening at the McLeod Center.
 
For the second year in a row, the Purple Aces have started league play with a 2-1 mark; after a 2-0 start last season, UE lost four in a row.  On Saturday, Evansville took an 85-68 win over Southern Illinois marking its third home win in a row over the Salukis.  The win marked the 100th conference win in the head coaching career of Marty Simmons; prior to his arrival at UE, Simmons coached at Wartburg and SIU Edwardsville.
 
In Saturday’s victory, all four senior starters (Ned Cox, Lewis Jones, Colt Ryan and Troy Taylor) scored in double figures; it marked the first time in their careers that each finished a game with 10 or more tallies.  Since the beginning of the 2011-12 campaign, UE has had 17 games where four or more players have reached double figures in scoring; the Aces were 9-2 when doing that last season and are 4-2 thus far in 2012.
 
Troy Taylor notched 10 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists on Saturday against Southern Illinois; with the effort, he moved up to 5th overall in the league in rebounding and No. 1 in league play; in three MVC games, the senior has averaged 12 rebounds per contest.
 
Colt Ryan posted the top scoring effort of the season as he finished with 26 points in the win over Southern Illinois; over the last ten games, Ryan has finished with 13 or more point in nine of those contests; the Batesville, Ind. product has notched an average of 22.3 PPG in the last four outings.
 
Picked third in the MVC preseason poll, Northern Iowa has gone 8-7, but has struggled to a 1-2 mark in its first three MVC games while falling in four of its last six outings.  Despite the 8-7 mark, UNI is 6-1 at home, their lone loss came to Indiana State on Jan. 2 as the Sycamores came away with a 65-61 triumph.
 
Seth Tuttle leads UNI with 11.4 points per game while ranking second on the squad with 6 rebounds; their top player on the boards has been Jake Koch, who has notched 6.3 per game while blocking a team-high 19 shots.  The Panthers are coming off of a strong 70-60 road win at Illinois State on Saturday; Tuttle and Anthony James led UNI with 19 points while Tuttle pulled in seven rebounds; Tuttle was 8-9 from the floor while hitting all three free throw attempts.  UNI has been one of the top teams in the nation from the line, hitting 75.3% of its free throws, second in the league and 26th in the country.
 
Last season, the Aces earned their first win in Cedar Falls since the 2001-02 season.  Colt Ryan did not score a point in the first half of the 76-65 win, but came back in a big way, notching 29 points in the second half to lead UE to the win.