(St. Louis, MO) – Thanks to D.J. Balentine Evansville’s brand line up is off to a great start. Evansville is undefeated and Balentine is scoring points at a record pace. The sophomore swing man is averaging 29.6 points per game after scoring EXACTLY 29 points four times and 32 once.
Balentine is leading and a huge group of Missouri Valley Conference under classmen into national prominence. Evansville’s top four scorers are all in their first or second year in college.
Nationally ranked Wichita State has two super sophomores in Ron Baker and Fred Van Vleet, while Loyola’s stellar freshman Milton Doyle is the third highest scoring Rambler and leads his team in assists.
Evansville Head Coach Marty Simmons knew he had plenty of fresh faces in his line up and was hoping Balentine could take up the lead role vacated by the Purple Aces’ all-time leading scorer Colt Ryan. The Kokomo, Indiana native averaged just over eight points per game during his freshman season, but Simmons thought he could be their ‘go to guy’ this season.
Simmons proved prophetic when speaking of Balentine and the rest of his new line up when we spoke just prior to the season.
Freshmen Duane Gibson and Blake Simmons are scoring in double figures and Gibson leads the team in both rebounds and assists and ‘Old Man Adam Wing’ (a sophomore) is the team’s second leading scorer.
The schedule gets tougher for the Aces as they tackle Indiana, Ohio, Murray State, Miami (Ohio), Xavier and Butler among their final eight remaining games of this calendar year.
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Caleb Stone-Carrawell is in the portal. @SaintLouisMBB or some @ValleyHoops team ought to get this guy.
.@BustingBrackets gives a brief intro to the 5 new @ValleyHoops head coaches.
I don't blame players for leaving, but this wild fluctuation is going to kill fan interest. When the TV people's ratings go down and the attendance figures keep falling, maybe the 'Suits' will wake up and fix this.
I think I'm going to enter the portal.
