Evansville Purple Aces Receive More Awards

Junior Blake Simmons and Mislav Brzoja received Scholar-Athlete honors as the University of Evansville men’s basketball team continues preparations for Arch Madness.

The Purple Aces will play their first game of the event on Friday at 6 p.m. against either Missouri State or Drake.  Fox Sports Midwest will have live coverage of the UE game along with the other three Arch Madness contests on Friday.

Simmons was named to the MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team with a stellar GPA of 3.847.  Simmons, a Sport Management major, has started all 31 games this season for the Aces.  He averaged 5.8 points per game this season and has been on a roll as of late, scoring nine points or more in four of his last five games.

Brzoja grabbed a spot on the Scholar-Athlete Second Team with a 3.366 GPA as a Global Business major.  The 2016 6th Man of the Year has played in all 31 games this season while posting a career-high of 25 points in the road win at Southern Illinois.

Everyone is ready for tomorrow’s contest as the Aces await their opponent in tonight’s game.  The Aces enter the tournament as the #2 seed, their highest effort since 1999.  Evansville went 23-8 in the regular season and were a strong 12-6 in league play.

Pacing the squad were All-MVC First Team players D.J. Balentine and Egidijus Mockevicius.  Balentine is a 3-time member of the 1st Team.  He led the conference in scoring in each of the last three seasons and will finish his career as the #4 scorer in league history.  He is the first player in Evansville history to record 2,400 points in his illustrious career.

Mockevicius is wrapping up a stellar career of his own.  Just a week after breaking the program rebounding mark, Mockevicius has pushed his season rebounding average back up to 14.0 per game, which remains the best in the country.  He begins March with a streak of nine double-doubles in a row.  His latest streak in that category has vaulted him to the top of the NCAA with a total of 26 this season.

Picking up a spot on the Most Improved Team was junior Jaylon Brown.  Starting all 31 games, Brown posted an average of 10.5 PPG while registering his career high of 19 points on three occasions.  Brown had a streak in December that saw him register double figures in seven out of eight games.

Action in the tournament commences on Thursday evening as Loyola and Bradley open up with a game at 6 p.m. and will be followed by Missouri State and Drake at 8:30 p.m.

Wichita State begins the action on Friday with a noon contest against either Loyola or Bradley.  The second game of the day will see #4 UNI take on #5 Southern Illinois at 2:30.  Evansville takes to the floor at 6 p.m. on Friday before #3 Illinois State and #6 Indiana State wrap up the day at 8:30 p.m.

Courtesy of Bob Pristash, University of Evansville Associate Athletics Director for Media Relations