EVANSVILLE, Ind. – A seven-minute scoring drought late in the game overshadowed a strong Illinois State first half, as the Redbirds fell to the Evansville Aces by a 57-48 score on Saturday afternoon.
Illinois State had three players reach double-figure scoring, led by Antonio Reeves' 11 points, while DJ Horne and Josiah Strong each scored 10. Dedric Boyd scored eight points off the bench for ISU. Dusan Mahorcic pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds, as Howard Fleming Jr. was one off of his career-high with eight rebounds while tying for the team lead with two assists.
The Redbirds came out firing in the game and scored the first five points of the contest on a Mahoric lay-in and a Reeves three-pointer. After Evansville climbed ahead by two at 12-10 with 12:35 to play in the opening half, the Illinois State defense tightened and held the Aces without a point for a five-minute span, as the 11-0 run put ISU ahead by nine, capped by a Boyd three-pointer with 7:31 to play in the period. The lead grew to as big as 10 points on a pair of Boyd free throws, before Evansville closed the half on a 12-3 run to cut the gap to one heading into the locker room at halftime.
The Aces scored the first five points of the half; and led by five two minutes into the second half before ISU scored six straight on lay-ins by Horne (twice) and Reeves to lead by one. The lead changed hands two more times in the next minute and a half as ISU led 36-35 with 13:05 remaining in the contest. A 16-5 Evansville run put the hosts ahead by 10, before ISU fought back to climb within six at 51-45 with 7:52 to play in the contest. The Redbird offense hit a cold spell and went over seven minutes before scoring its next basket, an Abdou Ndiaye three-pointer with 24 seconds left in the game.
Jawaun Newton tied a career-high by scoring a game-high 19 points, while Shamar Givance scored 15. Givance also pulled down seven rebounds with a game-high six assists.
Illinois State out-rebounded Evansville 32-to-30 and made 43 percent of its shots from the field (18-of-42). The 'Birds went 6-of-13 from long range (46.2 percent) and dished out seven assists. Evansville made just 38.6 percent of its shots (22-of-57) and went 7-of-25 from beyond the arc.
The two teams meet up again on Sunday afternoon in a 1 p.m. tip-off at the Ford Center.
GoRedbirds.com and the Illinois State Redbirds App: Your sources for Illinois State tickets, Weisbecker Scholarship Fund gifts, multimedia, Redbird merchandise, photos and more.
