By Peyton Wesner
So far this season IUPUI has played three opponents from the state of Indiana and are 1-2 with their only win coming against Ball State. They dropped the other two games against Indiana State and Purdue. The team from Indianapolis returned one starter from last year's team, Marcellus Barksdale (JR), but suffered a huge lost as Ian Chiles (SR) their leading scorer with 15.8 PPG last season, decided to transfer to the University of Tennessee for his Senior season. So far Chiles has played one minute of one game this season in what looks like a stupid decision to tranfer. Barksdale is the Jaguars team leader and leading scorer as he is coming into tonight averaging 10.8 PPG, 4.8 RPG, and 2.7 APG. Besides, Barksdale, the Jaguars are featuring three new players in this year's starting lineup with transfers P.J. Boutte (JR) from Detroit and Mason Archie III (JR) from Davidson and Freshman Aaron Brennan. IUPUI has been in some really close, competitive games this year as half of them (3) have been decided by three or less points. Both wins, one against Milwaukee and the other against Ball State, were decided by two points. With their experience in crunch time, if tonight's game comes down to the wire, the Jaguars will not cave under pressure.
The Purple Aces eyes are aimed high this year in the Missouri Valley. They are one of two teams from the MVC to return all five of their starters, the other is the Northern Iowa Panthers. Evansville is off to a tremendous start this season. They went into the Gulf Coast Showdown in Estero, Florida, and won two of their three games. Their one lose came against a really good mid-major team in the Green Bay Phoenix led by high-rising scorer Keifer Sykes (SR). The game against Green Bay was the semi-final of the tournament and was close throughout. There was eleven seconds left in the game and UE had the ball down two with the chance to tie or win. Rather than going to star D.J. Balentine (JR), Coach Simmons (UE), decided to have Taylor Stafford (JR) shoot his only attempt of the game. The shot was off but Blake Simmons (SO) grabbed the rebound and attempted a layup to send it to overtime. He missed. Green Bay advanced and won the tournament the next day against Florida Gulf Coast. Actually Green Bay pulled off one of many huge upsets today with their win in Miami against "The U" who were ranked fifthteenth. It was the Hurricanes first loss of the season. UE features one of the nation's best scorers in Balentine. He averaged 22.8 PPG, which was the seventh most per game in the nation last season. This season he is averaging 19.7 PPG. Walking into battle with him is a 6-10 Junior from Lithuania, Egidijus Mockevicius. Mockevicius has been a double-double machine this season as he is averaging 13.8 PPG and 9.7 RPG.
The game's first basket was made by a guy who had his name called a lot tonight, D.J. Balentine. The game was back and forth for the first five minutes but then the two Jaylons, Jaylon Moore (SR) and Jaylon Brown (SO), gave the Purple Aces a spark off the bench and helped UE start a 6-0 run that caused IUPUI's first year coach, Jason Gardner, to take a timeout with the score 14-9. It didn't help. The 6-0 run turned into a
19-0 Evansville run that gave them the lead of 27-9 with 8:13 left in the first half. IUPUI's scoring drout lasted for six minutes and twenty-two seconds. The game was basically over at that point. Evansville pushed their lead to 20+ with a Mockevicius layup at the 2:50 mark. To end the half UE's Adam Wing (JR) scored four unaswered to push the Purple Aces' lead to 40-16.
The second half was more competitive but it was all but over. IUPUI played better in the second half but Evansville continued to pile on the points with Balentine and Duane "BOOOOOOO" Gibson (SO). The Jaguars did cut the deficit down to under twenty with a Davron Williams (SR) layup with 8:58 left in the second half but Evansville would quickly return the lead to 21 with Gibson. The UE lead never went below twenty for the remaining eight minutes. Final Score: IUPUI 62, Evansville 89.
What's Next
IUPUI heads to Cincinnati to face Xavier and then hosts Eastern Kentucky, a 2014 NCAA Tournament team. The schedule then gets easier with games against Howard and South Alabama before it gets back to the grind against Richmond, Pepperdine, and NC Central on December 29. Personally, I don't see too many wins coming to the Jaguars for the remainder of the month.
Evansville starts a tough two game stretch in their schedule as they face two Ohio Valley contenders in the Belmont Bruins and Murray State Racers. Belmont is currently 7-1 and has a deadly scorer in Craig Bradshaw (JR) who is their leading scorer with 21.3 PPG. Evansville at Belmont will be the best game no one sees on Tuesday night in my opinion. After Belmont, UE hosts those bad boys from Murray State, which starts a stretch of five games in a row at the Ford Center. After the OVC tour, Evansville ends the year with easy opposition (Ohio, Alabama State, Coppin State) before opening conference play with the best team in "The Valley" besides Wichita State, Northern Iowa.
Players of Game:
IUPUI: Leo Svete 17 points
Evansville: D.J. Balentine 22 points, 2 rebounds, and 3 assists
Next Game:
IUPUI: Tuesday at 6-2 Xavier (On FS1)
Evansville: Tuesday at 7-1 Belmont
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