Box Score EVANSVILLE, Ind.-- Mount St. Joseph men's basketball program traveled to Evansville, Indiana to take on the Purple Aces. Evansville a DI program who plays in the Missouri Valley Conference may have been expecting to coast through this game, but the Lions came to play.
In the first half the Lions were very competitive with the much bigger Purple Aces squad. The center for the Lions Bobby Murdock who was being guarded by a seven footer most of the first half was outstanding. He hit three first half 3-pointers enroute to 11 first half points. On multiple occasions in the first half Evansville threatened to pull away from the Lions, but they would not be able to. The Lions continued to fight, cutting their deficit to only two points with 5 minutes to play in the half, on the strength of a Murdock three. From that point though the Purple Aces closed the half on a 13-5 run to seize control of the game and go into the half with a 37-29 lead.
The begginning of the second half would be much like the end of the first as Evansville opened on a 14-2 run pushing their lead out to 20 points. But again the Lions would not go away, the began to chip away at the lead with a very scrappy style of play. The Lions cut into the lead and while not being able to get over the hump to get all the way back in the game, they were able to avoid a blow out.
The Lions play was very impressive against the much bigger Evansville squad especially on the backboards where they outrebounded the much larger Aces 38-30. Andrew Finley had another solid performance for the Lions scoring 17 points and pulling in 5 boards. Murdock chipped in 14 and Adam Goetz delivered 10.
The Lions will hit the hardwood again on January 4th, in a home match-up with Bluffton. The game will get underway at 7:30 pm inside the Harrington Center.
