We are counting down the days to the start of the college basketball season.
If you’re reading this on the day it was published, we have 47 days to the official start of College Basketball, and 36 days until we can see the team in action against K-State (presuming it’s televised).
The Full Non-Conference Schedule:
- October 23rd — at Kansas State (exhibition)
- October 29th — at UNLV (exhibition)
- November 3rd — vs Cleveland State
- November 6th — vs Saint Louis (in St. Louis)
- November 9th — vs SIU-Edwardsville
- November 15th — vs Marquette (in Chicago)
- November 18th — vs Alcorn State
- November 20th — vs Le Moyne
- November 24th — vs Evansville
- November 27th — vs Arkansas Pine Bluff
- December 1st — vs Pittsburgh (ACC-SEC Challenge)
- December 6th — vs Kansas (in Kansas City)
- December 12th — vs Nebraska (in Kansas City)
- December 18th — at Indiana
- December 20th — vs Illinois (in St. Louis)
- December 22nd — vs Chicago State
After the last few years of a poor lineup of Q4 games in the non-conference schedule, Missouri pulled a 180 and have schedule as well as anyone in the country. On top of playing Illinois and Kansas as previously scheduled, the Tigers are playing neutral court matchups against SLU, Marquette, Nebraska, and a road game at Indiana. There’s no question Dennis Gates stepped it up.
Let’s Meet: the Evansville Purple Aces
Evansville became the school we know today in 1919 when they moved to the Indiana town of Evansville from Moore’s Hill, Indiana. Moore’s Hill College was founded in 1854, but the whole thing picked up and moved to Evansville.
As a basketball program, the Purple Aces were a powerhouse during its Division 2 years up until 1977 when they made the transition to the Midwest Collegiate Conference, now called the Horizon League. As a D2 school, The Aces won five national championships between 1959 and 1971. They rostered several NBA players during that era including Jerry Sloan, who also went on to be the long time coach of the Utah Jazz.
In 1994, they became members of the Missouri Valley Conference. The MVC has proven a more complex puzzle as the program has mostly struggled since the move. They haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1999, and have just 3 20 win seasons since that year. They also have 9 single digit win seasons in that same span.
The thing I remember most about Evansville was their terrible uniforms. You remember the t-shirt jerseys right? It was the most ridiculous looking thing, a college basketball team out there looking like Peter Lafleur on the Average Joes.
Head Coach | David Ragland | 5th Season 40-91
Nobody can accuse Evansville administration of not being patient with their coaches. Jim Crews was there for 17 years, Steve Merfield got 5 years, Martin Simmons got 11 years… but since Simmons was fired in 2018, it’s been a bit of a mess. Walter McCarty, a former Kentucky Wildcat and Evansville native, was fired mid-season after beating Kentucky at Kentucky, because of “inappropriate conduct with a member of the campus community.” I’m not going to go into the details but the program has struggled to find solid footing since that move was made.
They moved quickly to replace him with Todd Lickliter, an assistant under McCarty, who was fired two years later because they just couldn’t win games.
In walks David Ragland, with a lot of work ahead of him. Ragland is another Evansville native who landed the head job. Before taking the job at Evansville, Ragland had been a career assistant, working most recently at Butler, as well as Utah State, Valpo, Northern Kentucky and Bowling Green. He was the head coach at Vincennes, one of the top JUCOs in the country before making his way to Indiana State as an assistant.
After winning just 5 games in his first season, he turned around and won 17 the next. But then just 11 wins, and last year dropping back down into single digits again with a final record of 7-25.
Series History | Mizzou leads 2-0
Despite the Purple Aces being a fairly storied and well known basketball program over the years, it’s surprising these two teams haven’t played more. But the last time a Missouri team played against Evansville, Kalen Grimes was the leading scorer for the Tigers, in Mike Anderson’s first season as head coach. Mizzou won the game 73-54 to move to 9-0 on the season. Stefhon Hannah, Jason Horton, and Darryl Butterfield also scored in double figures that game. The Tigers would go on to finish 9-12 the rest of the way.
The only other contest happened in the 1989-90 season, one of the best regular seasons in Missouri history. That team began the season ranked 11th in the country, and peaked at number one, where they spent 8 weeks atop the poll in total. Doug Smith led the team in scoring, Anthony Peeler was second, Nathan Buntin, Lee Coward, and John MacIntyre all averaged double figures as well. This is how much things have changed over the years, Missouri beat Evansville to open the season by 15 points, in the Maui Invitational. The season didn’t start until November 24th. Amazingly the game is on YouTube!
What about the team now?
Ragland is hoping for brighter days this season, and he might be able to pull it off. One problem is they’re young, very young. In an environment that prizes experience, Evansville doesn’t have much. They also lost a lot from last season. But they return their best player in AJ Casey, a physical 6’9 forward who is capable of stretching the floor.
He’s their only senior, but he scored 13.9 points per game a year ago, and made 34% of this threes.
They also return Bryce Quintet, a 6’3 guard who started 19 games, and averaged 8.7 points.
But there are 14 players on the Evansville roster, and 6 of them are freshmen, one is a redshirt freshman, and five are sophomores or redshirt sophomores.
They’ve taken a few transfers, Gustav Winther started 21 games for Northern Illinois last season, and averaged 8 points a game. Max Langenfeld was a lightly used wing at Florida Atlantic, and Makuei Riek is a wing forward who spent time at UW-Milwaukee, Fairfield, and Salt Lake City CC where he averaged 13.5 points.
Evansville is ranked 272nd in BartTorvik.com, which is better than last season. Still, it’s a big hill to climb to ask them to upset the Tigers at Mizzou Arena.