Time for Missouri Valley Conference basketball. Evansville is KenPom's #312 team.
One thing that stands out about Evansville this season is they play at a snail's pace. Only 4 division 1 college basketball teams play at a slower pace than Evansville this season (Davidson, Saint Mary's, Air Force, Virginia). The Purple Aces are 93rd in the country in 3 point shooting percentage (35.9%) but are also bottom 10 in the country in 3 point shooting percentage against (44%) which should benefit the Salukis, the 3rd best shooting 3 point team in the nation. Evansville is also 95th in the country in steal % but also turn the ball over a lot themselves.
Evansville's best shooter this year has been 6'4 Senior Noah Frederking who is 2nd on the team in points per game (13.7 PPG). Frederking is 81st in the country in effective field goal % and 64th in the country in true shooting % and when he shoots, he mainly shoots from 3 as 36 of his 54 field goal attempts this year have been from long range (17-36 from 3, 124th in the country).
The Purple Aces leading rebounder so far this year is 6'7 Senior forward Jax Levitch (5.7 RPG). Levitch doesn't get many possessions but so far this year has made the most of those possessions. He's 10-19 from 3 (58th in the country) and 53rd in the country in true shooting percentage.
Evansville has a few players to watch that haven't played the full amount of games yet but the team has improved with them on the court. 6'3 guard Jawaun Newton has played 3 games this year and is the Purple Aces' leading scoring (14.3 PPG). 6'4 Nebraska transfer Samari Curtis has played in 2 games this year and scored 19 points in the Aces last game against Belmont.
Betting:
SIU favored by 9.5 per BetMGM
Links:
Dawgs pull away late and cover is my guess
Can somebody (maybe a player's parent) sneak me in a side door?
I love these scouting reports, thank you @SalukiWorld!
Curious to see how Mullins manages minutes on the front end of these back-to-backs, especially for Domask, who played all 40 minutes at Butler. Is that why he tripped at the end? Maybe.
Evansville isn’t Butler, but here’s hoping the deeper bench guys can inspire enough confidence not to wear down the starters as league play moves along.
I am so ready for this game. For the past few days I was thinking it was a Mon/Tues tilt. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised to be wrong. This new back to back format is certainly going to test bench strategy. I think Mullins will show us a few new wrinkles today. Wonder who the heroes will be this afternoon. Hope we see a new face emerge, and am pulling again for Ben Harvey to shoot lights out.
I think Mullins will not hold anything back because of the second game. I'd say that the strategy is win today, worry about tomorrow later. It doesn't make sense to risk losing game one because of planning to win tomorrow. If that means Domask playing 40 minutes than so beat it. Unless we have a large lead, expect to see the normal guys in for their normal amount of time in game 1.
76-61 SIU
Prediction:
SIU: 70
Evansville: 51
From what I have seen, Evansville plays painfully slow. I'd expect SIU to hold them under 60 easily.
Bryan Mullins with Mike Reis:
OK - Tipoff! GO DAWGS!
Go Dawgs!
Broken record alert.................... please stop taking 3's when there is no one under, or near, the basket which means there is 0% chance of an offensive rebound.
SIU starting off cold from the field and still have a lead. I like it.
D U N K !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
