Per McDevitt on the Blue Raider podcast, the series (which I believe he said will go for four years) was in part put together in commemoration of the tragic plane crash that killed the entire 1977-1978 Evansville MBB team as they headed to Murfreesboro to play MTSU.
Evansville was picked to finished 9th (out of 12) in an MVC that is usually ranks in the same realm of C-USA. The Purple Aces are coming off a 17-18 season after finishing with just 11 total wins over the prior two seasons.
Evansville has struggled with rebounding under each of their seasons with head coach David Ragland. That looks like it remains the case with them being outrebounded on the offensive glass by North Texas last week 13-3. Mostafa lived up to his resounding rebounding reputation against Abilene Christian with 5 ORebs in 22 mins. Look for him to make an impact tonight.
The Purple Aces improved behind the arc in 23-24 making 37% of their 3s in conference play, ranking 4th in the MVC. Last year only about a third of their FGAs were from 3, but the volume has increased in the small sample size of this season where exactly half of their 118 FGAs have been from 3. The flip side... Evansville has ranked dead last in the MVC the last two years in 3p% defense. North Texas shot 38% last week, so it is very possible its still a vulnerability of theirs. MTSU shot the 3 well (35%) and guarded ACU from 3 well (14%) last Saturday. Interested to see how that continues given what Evansville is scouted to be as a perimeter offense and defense.
I have been busy with duties in my professional and personal life lately so I haven't gotten to say much on the Abilene Christian game, but I was very very pleased. Still want to be a little careful in expectations, we all remember what happened in their first D1 game in 23-24 and how the rest of the season went, but everything I liked about the blueprint in building this team this past offseason was on display in Abilene last weekend. In short, it seems like Nick made a conscious pivot from a positional versatility identity to one with more specific positions and roles in mind for each individual player. Right now it looks like they have a pure point guard. A pure scoring guard. A real backup/combo guard. A pure low post threat. A rim protector. Wing scorers. Wing defenders. Energy athletes. Etc etc etc. Hope to see more confirmation of this so I can write more extensively on it soon.
While keeping in mind that college basketball is where the unexpected becomes ordinary, Evansville is expected to be along the same level of team the Blue Raiders saw in ACU. This time its at home where we all know MT has had pretty good success at. Spread currently sits at MT being favored by 10.5. Barring an unforeseen breakout year from Evansville, anything short of a comfortable win will be disappointing, and anything short of a win will be pretty concerning and erase all the goodwill they earned on Saturday.
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