Editor's note:As the 2010s come to an end, the Courier & Press sports staff is highlighting the biggest local sports stories of the past decade related to athletics at the University of Evansville,University of Southern Indiana, high school sports and other areas. Today, we continue with Chad Lindskog'slook at UE athletics.
Seemingly everything about University of Evansville athletics transformed this decade. Records, logos, coaches and arenas.
The Purple Aces spent a few moments in the national spotlight. Of course, some things remained the same: The NCAA tournament drought is 10 years older, they're still in the Missouri Valley Conference and haven't brought the football team back.
Here are the best UE sports moments of the 2010s.
Down goes No. 1 Kentucky
Nov. 12, 2019: Evansville 67, No. 1 Kentucky 64
There’s some recency bias involved here, but oh well. Evansville was the top trending Twitter nationwide this night and that hadn’t previously happened.
Days before the game, Sam Cunliffe said the Wildcats “put their pants on one leg at a time, too, so we’re not worried about that.” Of course, that's what the Aces were supposed to say. It’s different to bring that theory to fruition.
The Aces were 25-point underdogs being paid $90,000 to simply show up. They instead put Evansville back on the map, became November’s Cinderella and starteda trend of No. 1-ranked teams being upset.
It was a fairytale story involving Walter McCarty leading his hometown college to victory over his alma mater, where he won a national championship.
There wasn’t a lucky buzzer-beater, either. UE spent 29 minutes, 34 seconds with the lead and didn’t trail by more than three points throughout.
They landed headlines on all the top national news outlets, were the lead of SportsCenter that night as they received a hero’s welcome back to town and then continued the celebration with a pep rally on campus the next day.
As the story goes, before the game, McCarty gathered the Aces to show them a clip from the Will Smith movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness.”
“Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me,” Will Smith’s character told his says alongside a basketball court. “All right? You got a dream? You gotta protect it. If people can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you, you can’t do it.
“You want something? Go get it! Period.”
The Aces went and got it. Period. What an unforgettable night.
More:Twitter erupts about Evansville's upset win over Kentucky
Changing of the guard
Marty Simmons, head coach 2007-2018 (184-175 record)
Walter McCarty, head coach 2018-present (20-25 record)
In terms of newsworthiness, it didn’t get much bigger than this.
Marty Simmons, a Purple Aces Hall of Famer whose jersey hangs from the rafters inside Ford Center, was fired after 11 seasons in March 2018. He is the program’s third-longest tenured coach and compiled the third-most wins, but he didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament or the National Invitation Tournament.
As a player, Simmons was one of the best in UE history. The Indiana transfer was a first-team All-Midwestern Collegiate Conference honoree in 1987 and ’88 and averaged 24.3 points per game in two seasons.
However, fan interest waned during his coaching tenure, which saw a 31 percent decrease in attendance from his first year to final season. So, UE went with a hometown favorite to replace him.
Walter McCarty was hired on March 22 last year as the seventh coach in program history. The search lasted a week and featured other Harrison High School alumni. But McCarty, who spent the previous five seasons as a Boston Celtics assistant, ultimately won the job.
UE made a big decision to pivot from Simmons and believedit hired the right man for the job. However, McCarty's future is currently up in the air after he was placed on leave on Friday for alleged Title IX violations.
The future of UE men's basketball could bein jeopardy depending on the findings from an independent investigation. The Aces might have to start from scratch.
Report card:Grading the 2019-20 Aces'non-conference performance
Goodbye Roberts Stadium, hello Ford Center
Roberts Stadium: Closed2011; demolished 2013
Ford Center: Opened2011
After 55 years and more than 800 games, Roberts Stadium closed its doors in 2011 and was demolished two years later.
Fans all have their favorite memories of Rockin’ Roberts from the five national championships featuringJerry Sloan in the 1960s and Don Buse in the ‘70s toseeing Scott Haffner score 65 points in ’89, Marcus Wilson hit the shot that sent them to the 1999 MVC title and so many more great moments.
The Aces went 604-231 insider Roberts and averaged 7,521 fans per season, welcoming more than six million of them through its doors.
Then they moved Downtown to Ford Center, where they defeated two-time defending national runner-up Butler in overtime to win the first game in November 2011. The second game was a loss to Indiana.
UE is 104-40 at Ford Center since itopened. The largest crowd to date happened Jan. 31, 2016, when 10,034 people saw a ranked Wichita State team win. The 2011 Indiana and Butler games ranksecond and third, respectively.
Certainly, the Aces hope for many more good memories to come.
Kyle Freeland a first-round MLB Draft pick
"With the eighth selection of the 2014 first-year player draft, the Colorado Rockies select Kyle Freeland, a left-handed pitcher from the University of Evansville." — MLB commissioner Bud Selig
Kyle Freeland almost never pitched for UE.
The Philadelphia Phillies selected him in the 35th round of the 2011 draft and offered him top-10 round money after he set the state of Colorado’s single-season strikeout record as a high school senior lefty in Denver.
He was a diamond in the rough who later shined even brighter for the Purple Aces, especially during his junior season in 2014. Freeland had gone 8-13 as an underclassman until reaching a turning point in the Cape Cod League between his sophom*ore and junior years.
In 2014, he earned five All-American honors and was the MVC Pitcher of the Year on his way to a 10-2 record and 1.90 ERA in 14 starts, spanning 99.2 innings. He was sixth nationally with 128 strikeouts, second in program history only to Andy Benes.
Freeland was chosen in the first round of the 2014 MLB Draft by the team he’d rooted for since he was a boy, his hometown Rockies. He’s the third first-round pick from UE and the second-highest draftee behind Benes, who went No. 1 in 1988.
He eventually reached the MLB and finished seventh in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2017.
Colt Ryan, D.J. Balentine break men's basketball scoring record
Career scoring leaders:
1. D.J. Balentine (2012-16), 2,464 points
2. Colt Ryan (2009-13), 2,279 points
3. Larry Humes (1964-66), 2,236 points
After more than four decades of Larry Humes being the Purple Aces' all-time scoring king, a pair of players broke his longstanding record in the 2010s.
Colt Ryan was a two-time all-MVC first-teamer who did it first as a senior in 2013 until his understudy then surpassed him three years later.
Ryan ended Humes' 47-year reign on March 23, 2013, with a 39-point outing during a win over Canisius in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. He finished his career No. 6 in MVC history, owns the most steals in program history and is rememberedfor sending out Roberts Stadium in honor.
"This is a very special accomplishment," Ryan told the Courier & Press at the time. "Mr. Humes set that mark in just three years of playing, so it is a credit to what he did in such a short time that makes this moment so special."
Also on that team was D.J. Balentine, a three-time MVC scoring leader with a careeraverage of 20.5 per game -- only Larry Bird and Oscar Roberson have matched that feat.
Balentine broke Ryan's record on Feb. 6, 2016, at home near the end of a win over Missouri State with a 3-pointer. He was the MVP of UE's 2015 CIT title and nearly led them to the NCAAs as a senior...
More:UE recently held "Larry Humes Day" and honored the legend
Bonus: The Bounce
March 6, 2016: Northern Iowa 56, Evansville 54 -- MVC Tournament title game on CBS
When Wes Washpun'sjumperclanged off the rim, the ball climbed straight up as high as the top of the backboardand hung in the air long enough for the buzzer to sound.
UE faithful collectively held their breath.
Then it dropped through the net to give the UNI the MVC title and the Aces heartbreak after they had overcome a 17-point deficit to set up the dramatic ending.
This certainly was a top 5 moment in terms of being unforgettable, but the result holds it back from being celebrated. Had UE won this game, this list would be completely different.
UE was oh, so close to its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1999.
"This is probably the worst pain I've ever felt," D.J. Balentine said afterward.
Contact Chad Lindskog of the Courier & Press by email, clindskog@gannett.com, or on Twitter: @chadlindskog.
