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Post by purpleaces on Feb 8, 2024 12:35:25 GMT -6
You can definitely tell Coach is building a culture here. I love it and this team definitely deserves to be playing in front of 5k+. Who would have thought after last year we would be where we are right now. With a healthy Ben all season we could be sitting 4th or 5th right now. There is a ton to be happy about and the future of Aces basketball is heading in the right direction.
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Post by austinace on Feb 8, 2024 12:40:46 GMT -6
Pretty sad I didn't see one local television station at the game.
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Post by E-Villan on Feb 8, 2024 12:57:19 GMT -6
Pretty sad I didn't see one local television station at the game. It was covered this morning on WEVV as well.
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Post by lawrencevgibson on Feb 8, 2024 13:02:51 GMT -6
I'll focus on the way we finished this game out. It was back and forth in the 2nd half and after Bradley took leads we had Kenny hit a huge 3 with about 3 minutes left and then Ben's drive and finish for the and 1 to give us the lead. Antonio hit 4 big FTs and then Bobe stepped up and hit 2 himself. Offensively we took care of business and answered when we needed to. The way we defended can and should be a learning experience. With about 15 seconds left Bradley got a layup on a sideline out of bounds play out of a timeout that was way too easy. We then didn't use the foul to give, although the way Hickman was going down the sideline as with 3-4 seconds to go as much as I wanted them to foul as they crossed half court, we had 2 guys shadowing Hickman and forced a tough shot. Luckily it took just long enough so that the shot at the buzzer was just late. I'm not a foul up 3 guy in general, which is another discussion for another time.......a lot can go wrong and you introduce losing into the equation. Ultimately we matched Bradley shot for shot down the stretch and had multiple guys step up and make plays in crunch time. This was a great team win, as someone pointed out earlier all 9 guys who saw the floor scored, all 9 put up 6 or more as well. This was a great win, the kind of win that building the program back needs taking down a top tier team at home, making Ford Center a tough place to come in and win. We didn't do that the first time around with Murray.....let's go make amends for that on Saturday. This win proves that there’s a lot more wins possible. Maybe it took some hard knocks for the guys to decide what they wanted to do.
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Post by Ace78 on Feb 8, 2024 14:21:27 GMT -6
What an awesome game last night! It's a 2 hour drive to Evansville, and it was well worth it! The defense and overall intensity by the Aces was off the charts! Great to see that we refused to lose when Bradley made their run. With that win, it sure is promising for the Aces to do well with this tough stretch of remaining games. As noted, we will have Drake, SIU, and Indiana State all at home. I would expect a lot of Aces fans at Murray on Saturday. I think the Aces will remember the earlier Racers' game like they did the earlier Bradley game. I'll definitely be making that 35 minute drive over to Murray!
Wednesday's overall MVC results couldn't have worked out better for the Aces! We win, to go 6-7 in MVC. Belmont beats Murray, so both teams now 6-7. UNI beats Mo. State, who is now 6-7. UIC beats Illinois State, so they are now 5-8. The Aces move up to a 6th place tie!
This weekend: If UE wins, we go to 7-7 and Murray State goes to 6-8. Reverses with a loss. Illinois State (5-8) at SIU (7-6). IN State is at Missouri State (6-7). Belmont (6-7) is at Valpo. UNI (7-6) is at UIC.
If UE, Ill. State, IN State, Valpo, and UIC all win, the Aces could be tied for 4th place! Wow.
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Post by aceloverlarry on Feb 8, 2024 14:29:10 GMT -6
This weekend: If UE wins, we go to 7-7 and Murray State goes to 6-8. Reverses with a loss. Illinois State (5-8) at SIU (7-6). IN State is at Missouri State (6-7). Belmont (6-7) is at Valpo. UNI (7-6) is at UIC. If UE, Ill. State, IN State, Valpo, and UIC all win, the Aces could be tied for 4th place! Wow. That is a big if and we probably won’t get that lucky with that many upsets, but it is likely that we’ll still be in a tie for either 5th place or 6th place if we can win and the logjam at 6th place will be cleared out a little bit more with us falling into 7-8th place with a loss against Drake instead of falling into 10th place potentially. Regardless of position in the standings, being at .500 at this point in the season given the rough start would still be incredible. Hopefully we can keep building on this success and finish conference season .500 despite the rough start. I think we will be the one team that the teams with a bye do not want to draw on Friday.
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Post by kyace on Feb 8, 2024 14:33:49 GMT -6
If Coach Ragland can get this team to 19 or 20 wins then he deserves not only MVC coach of the year consideration but National coach of the year, Hope it happens, from talking to some of my old Evansville connections Coach is a super nice individual.
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Post by kyace on Feb 8, 2024 14:42:02 GMT -6
One other comment. Looking back it is a shame we didn’t pick the right Harrison grad. Can you imagine where this program could be now! Wasted years for Aces fans and don’t have many more left at my age. Hopefully can enjoy what’s left
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Post by aceloverlarry on Feb 8, 2024 14:58:11 GMT -6
One other comment. Looking back it is a shame we didn’t pick the right Harrison grad. Can you imagine where this program could be now! Wasted years for Aces fans and don’t have many more left at my age. Hopefully can enjoy what’s left That’s got to be one of the biggest what ifs in program history. We’ll never know, but based on Coach Rags personality and how great he is at recruiting and relating to players, I really think there’s a chance that he convinces Dru Smith and Ryan Taylor to hang around. If that happens, he probably hits the ground running and has us competing for the top of the MVC in Drus senior year. We’ll never know, but at a minimum, we definitely never have back to back worst seasons in school history and a coach in the national news embarrassing the program. It’s a real shame because the rumor has always been everyone but Spencer thought Ragland was the right guy in 2018.
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Post by youngacesfan on Feb 8, 2024 15:06:28 GMT -6
One other comment. Looking back it is a shame we didn’t pick the right Harrison grad. Can you imagine where this program could be now! Wasted years for Aces fans and don’t have many more left at my age. Hopefully can enjoy what’s left That’s got to be one of the biggest what ifs in program history. We’ll never know, but based on Coach Rags personality and how great he is at recruiting and relating to players, I really think there’s a chance that he convinces Dru Smith and Ryan Taylor to hang around. If that happens, he probably hits the ground running and has us competing for the top of the MVC in Drus senior year. We’ll never know, but at a minimum, we definitely never have back to back worst seasons in school history and a coach in the national news embarrassing the program. It’s a real shame because the rumor has always been everyone but Spencer thought Ragland was the right guy in 2018. And lance. They wanted the splash guy instead of the right guy
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Post by aradace on Feb 8, 2024 15:51:24 GMT -6
Great win. I said we needed to start good and we would have a chance and we should did. Wish Haffner could of played more in second half thought he earned it. BU coach knew they were in trouble from the start. It is tough to inspire kids after the beat a team by 36 points. Have seen it many times watching Aces basketball. Lets get revenge Saturday on Murry. Go Aces!!
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Post by Ace78 on Feb 8, 2024 16:37:45 GMT -6
This weekend: If UE wins, we go to 7-7 and Murray State goes to 6-8. Reverses with a loss. Illinois State (5-8) at SIU (7-6). IN State is at Missouri State (6-7). Belmont (6-7) is at Valpo. UNI (7-6) is at UIC. If UE, Ill. State, IN State, Valpo, and UIC all win, the Aces could be tied for 4th place! Wow. That is a big if and we probably won’t get that lucky with that many upsets, but it is likely that we’ll still be in a tie for either 5th place or 6th place if we can win and the logjam at 6th place will be cleared out a little bit more with us falling into 7-8th place with a loss against Drake instead of falling into 10th place potentially. Regardless of position in the standings, being at .500 at this point in the season given the rough start would still be incredible. Hopefully we can keep building on this success and finish conference season .500 despite the rough start. I think we will be the one team that the teams with a bye do not want to draw on Friday. That's true ... I know it is a big "if" (game outcomes on Saturday), but I sure didn't expect how it turned out last night, either! The bottom line is for the Aces to try and keep winning! It will be a tough road.
I certainly agree ... teams won't want to draw Evansville on Friday in the MVC tourney. It's unusual to be able to say that!
I'll be there Saturday at Murray. Hope to see lots of Aces fans there!
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Post by paradeuce on Feb 8, 2024 17:37:08 GMT -6
If Coach Ragland can get this team to 19 or 20 wins then he deserves not only MVC coach of the year consideration but National coach of the year, Hope it happens, from talking to some of my old Evansville connections Coach is a super nice individual. Any idea who Bradley plays Saturday?
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Post by acepurple84 on Feb 8, 2024 18:29:45 GMT -6
If Coach Ragland can get this team to 19 or 20 wins then he deserves not only MVC coach of the year consideration but National coach of the year, Hope it happens, from talking to some of my old Evansville connections Coach is a super nice individual. Any idea who Bradley plays Saturday? Drake
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Post by austinace on Feb 8, 2024 18:38:47 GMT -6
One other comment. Looking back it is a shame we didn’t pick the right Harrison grad. Can you imagine where this program could be now! Wasted years for Aces fans and don’t have many more left at my age. Hopefully can enjoy what’s left Totally agree. The only wildcard here was the AD would have been Spencer, instead of Ziggy. Spencer would likely still be here in that scenario (correct me if I am wrong). Having Ziggy and Logan on board makes it a more cohesion team that can take us to higher levels hopefully. But yes, a shame that we had to wait like three more years to get the right coach in place and start another rebuild. At least we are on our way now and moving in the right direction finally.
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