Aces Go Inside for Win Over Eagles
12/18/2009 4:27:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Evansville Ind. -- After finishing final exams and being off for nine days, Evansville passed the test against Georgia Southern, winning 75-58 at Roberts Stadium. James Haarsma and Colt Ryan combined for 48 of the Aces points and Haarsma had a game-high 10 rebounds. Sophomore forward Colby Wohlleb (Boca Raton, Fla) had 12 points off four three pointers and eight rebounds to lead the Eagles on both sides of the floor. Junior guard Willie Powers III (Gainesville, Fla.) had 11 points and seven assists, playing 39 minutes.
Down by eight at the break, 36-28, Georgia Southern had a 12-4 run to open the second half off four straight three-point baskets, two by Wohlleb and one each by Powers and Drayton to tie the score at 40. Haarsma had two baskets in the paint and a Ned Cox lay-in put the Aces lead back to six at 46-40 at 15:37.
Over next three and a half minutes the Aces would hold the Eagles to only three points while putting up seven. Johntavious Rucker (Decatur, Ga.) scored a layup at 10:43 followed by a layup by Cameron Baskerville (Marietta, Ga.) to get Georgia Southern within six again, 53-47.
Easy layups and whistles were hard to come by for the Eagles. Evansville took advantage of second chance opportunities and made the most of its defensive rebounds. A 10-2 Aces run put the lead back in double digits, 69-54. The Aces scored 30 points in the paint for the game and had only three turnovers in the second half.
It was a low scoring affair for the first 10 minutes with the two teams combining for only 21 points by the 11 minute mark of the first half. Georgia Southern shot 58 percent in the first period, slightly better than Evansville's 55.6 percent. Turnovers, lost possessions put Evansville ahead 33-25. Wohlleb hit a three from the right elbow off a Spencer pass to cut the lead to five, but Ryan hit three just right of the top of the key for the Evansville 36-28 lead at halftime.
Evansville converted 13 times off 17 trips to the foul line in the first half, The Eagles hit only 3-8 from the charity stripe in the first half. The Aces hit 21-32 free throws for the game to the Eagles 8-16.
Georgia Southern travels to Atlanta to take on Georgia State for the first of the home-and-home series with the Panthers. Tipoff is 7:30 p.m. at Georgia State Sports Arena. The Georgia Southern Alumni Relations office is playing host to a pre-game event at Six Feet Under near the Arena. For more information on the alumni event, please contact Alumni Relations at (912) 478-2586.
