The Spartans have had a very exciting start to their season so far, scoring at least 90 points in two of their three first games, even hitting the 100 points mark against the Titans on Thursday. While hitting that mark the Spartans also broke the MSU school record for field goal percentage in a game against UDM with a final field goal percentage of 70.9% from the field. 

On the other hand, Evansville is still on the hunt for its first win of the year after starting out 0-3 after falling just two points short in its game on Wednesday against Eastern Kentucky University. 

The Aces, led by third-year head coach Robyn Scherr-Wells, nearly made a huge comeback against EKU after scoring 25 points in the fourth quarter. However, they were not able to overcome the slow start and remain winless on the season. 

Two of the biggest players to look out for on the Aces side of the court will be freshman forward Neveah Thomas who finished with 24 points in 23 minutes against EKU and Kynidi Mason Striverson who finished with 14 points. 

Thomas and Striverson have been the biggest scorers for the Aces so far on the season as they are averaging a combined 30 points.

Conversely, the Spartans have done a spectacular job on the defensive side of the ball and will look to neutralize any major scoring outlets that the Aces have. 

In fact, be on the lookout for the Spartans to play defense until the final buzzer as they continue to try to find a way to play intense defense for a full 40 minutes. 

“Yeah, hopefully, we can get it (good defense) to forty minutes. Tonight we did have it for thirty minutes,” head coach Robyn Fralick said after the win against UDM. “There is an ability to keep doing it right and that’s a part of good pressure is that you have to keep doing it.” 

Heading into the final game of their homestead, Fralick and the Spartans will continue to take the season one game at a time. The Spartans have continued to take different aspects of their games, learn from them, and then use them in the next game and Fralick believes that is all a part of the process of the season. 

“Well, the process of the season is the process of the season,” Fralick said. “There is going to be a lot of things that we took from this that we have improved a lot on from our first game. You got to keep getting better, this season is full of peaks and valleys and you can’t sit too high and you can’t sit too low. You have got to have a mindset of learning and growing and we’ll get another opportunity to do that on Sunday.” 

Tip-off for the matchup between the Spartans and the Aces is set for Sunday, Nov. 19 at 1 p.m. 

The game will serve as the first game of a doubleheader with the men’s basketball team.