(Evansville, IN) – A funny thing happened to Evansville on their way to an easy win in the College Insider.com Postseason Tournament championship game. Northern Arizona stepped up and challenged the Aces with some physical play and dogged UE star D. J. Balentine into an awful shooting night.
Evansville trailed by 4 points with 9:57 to go and Balentine making just four of 16 shots, so they went to their biggest weapon, 6’10” center Egidijus Mockevicius. Marty Simmons’ team repeatedly pounded the ball inside to their 6’10” center and he responded with his 20th double-double of the season, scoring a career high 27 points and grabbing 12 rebounds.
Despite being manhandled on the offensive glass the Aces pulled out the CIT championship by a final score of 71-65.
Balentine finished with the game with 16 points, but averaged over 27 points per game during the tournament and was named the CIT – MVP.
After the game, Balentine and Simmons talked about crowd support, the play of Mockevicius, and what to expect net season.
Evansville finishes the season 24-12. They’ve played post-season basketball five of the last seven seasons, and have topped the 20 win plateau twice under Head Coach Marty Simmons. Aided by Evansville’s five tournament wins, the Missouri Valley Conference set a new league mark with 14 post-season wins (against three losses) and won two of the four tournaments, as Loyola took the College Basketball Invitational crown on Wednesday.
Evansville loses just one senior and the MVC anticipates 33 of this year’s league starters to return next season. League officials and fans are expecting great things next year.
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As we near the closing of the portal window, we've reached 1900. Some of them never to play college basketball again, earn a college degree and some to play at a much lower level than they did last season.
I guess we'll be seeing this in a @RacersHoops uniform this year. Glad AJ is staying in the @ValleyHoops.
