UC Irvine
Evansville
UC Irvine Cooled off by Evansville, 75-56
November 29, 2015 | Men's Basketball
ANAHEIM, Calif. --- Cold shooting by UC Irvine and timely scoring from Evansville led to a 75-56 win for the Purple Aces in the fifth-place game of the DIRECTV Wooden Legacy at the Honda Center Sunday.
The Anteaters hit just 8 of 33 (.242) from the field in the second half while Evansville shot 66.7 percent in the final 20 minutes in outscoring UCI, 48-25.
The 'Eaters shot a season-low 32.3 percent for the game and the Purple Aces hit 55.3 percent, plus Evansville made 14 of 17 free throws in the second half and 19 of 23 for the game.
UCI senior guard Alex Young scored nine points and his basket with 18:40 remaining in the game gave him 1,001 career points as he became the 25th player in Anteater history to reach 1,000 points.
Young also had five assists to lift his career total to 447, just 28 behind career leader Raimonds Miglinieks' mark of 475.
Junior guard Jaron Martin led UCI (5-2) with 15 points in 22 reserve minutes Sunday and he added four assists.
Junior post Ioannis Dimakopoulos scored 12 points in 18 minutes while junior center Mamadou Ndiaye had nine points, six rebounds and two blocked shots. Senior Dominique Dunning also snared six boards.
Egidiju Mockevicius led Evansville (5-1) with 21 points and 16 rebounds. D.J. Balentine and Blake Simmons scored 15 points each.
Dimakopoulos scored eight of his points in the first half as UCI took a 31-27 lead at the break. Young and Martin added seven points each in the opening 20 minutes.
A layup by Mockevicius with 12:35 remaining in the second half snapped a 37-37 tie and the Purple Aces never trailed again.
UCI stayed close and a bucket by Dunning with 7:09 left pulled the 'Eaters within 53-49, but Evansville went on a 17-3 run over the next five minutes to take a 70-52 lead on a pair of free throws by Jaylon Brown with 2:16 remaining.
UCI committed a season-low five turnovers, but was outrebounded 39-30.
"I want to give Evansville a lot of credit for the way they played for 40 minutes," UCI head coach Russell Turner said. "We were clearly beaten by a better opponent today.
"I respect those guys because what they did was not easy. They played a lot of guys for a lot of minutes and just had better team resolve and execution than us, so congratulations to them.
"The shooting was disheartening for our players," Turner continued. "You can't be disheartened in basketball if you don't make shots and want to be a championship-level team, and we want to be a championship-level team. You have to understand that for a bunch of basketball teams, there will be nights when shots don't go in. You've got to be able to win anyway, and tonight we weren't able to do it. We gave up 48 points in the second half and that is more the story of the game than us missing shots. We just didn't defend well and missed our shots.
"I give those guys (Evansville) credit because they executed really well and passed the ball really well at every spot. They're clearly unselfish, physical, fundamental, and all the things I'd like for us to be and we often have been that, but we weren't as good as they were in the second half tonight," Turner added.
UCI journeys north to face Pacific Friday night at 7:00 and Saint Mary's next Sunday at 4:00 p.m.
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