St. Louis – The top-seeded Illinois State Redbirds (26-5) ended the game on a 7-0 run to pull away from the Evansville Aces (16-17) in game one on Friday in the quarterfinals of the MVC Tournament, escaping with an 80-69 win to advance to the semifinals on Saturday.
Evansville started off the game shooting well hitting 4-of-7 shots to jump out to an early 9-4 lead over Illinois State as the favored Redbirds took a bit of time to get going in their first game of the tournament, but once they did they fed of the great crowd on the defensive end.
Illinois State features the 4th-ranked field goal defense in the nation and they got that going about midway through the half holding the Aces to a 1-for-11 stretch from the floor as the Redbirds would take their first lead of the game at 20-19. Once the defense got going the offense followed suit, hitting 5-of-9 from outside in the first half and shooting over 56% overall.
The Aces’ (and Valley) leading scorer Jaylon Brown couldn’t get anything going from the floor in the first frame, hitting just 2-of-10 shots but making all six of his free throws to lead the Aces in scoring with 10 in the half.
It would be Brown though, that would keep the Aces in the game in the second half, finishing with a game-high 24 points on just 7-of-25 shooting but Evansville couldn’t stop the Redbirds who finished with four players in double figures, led by 19 from Deonte Hawkins.
Evansville won the rebounding edge 37-29 but the bench of Illinois State poured in 30 to just eight for the Aces and that depth helped the Redbirds finish the game on that 7-0 run. The Redbirds will face the winner of the 4/5 matchup, either Loyola or Southern Illinois.
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