Southern Illinois Salukis (15-15, 9-10 MVC) at Evansville Purple Aces (7-23, 3-16 MVC)

Evansville, Indiana; Sunday, 4 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Evansville hosts Southern Illinois after AJ Casey scored 37 points in Evansville’s 80-79 win over the Valparaiso Beacons.

The Purple Aces have gone 5-9 at home. Evansville is ninth in the MVC with 13.1 assists per game led by Leif Moeller averaging 4.0.

The Salukis are 9-10 in conference games. Southern Illinois is the MVC leader with 25.2 defensive rebounds per game led by Rolyns Aligbe averaging 4.9.

Evansville averages 67.2 points per game, 2.5 fewer points than the 69.7 Southern Illinois allows. Southern Illinois averages 4.9 made 3-pointers per game this season, 4.5 fewer made shots on average than the 9.4 per game Evansville allows.

The teams square off for the second time this season in MVC play. Southern Illinois won the last matchup 86-60 on Feb. 13. Aligbe scored 18 points to help lead the Salukis to the victory.

TOP PERFORMERS: Alex Hemenway averages 1.7 made 3-pointers per game for the Purple Aces, scoring 7.0 points while shooting 32.5% from beyond the arc. Casey is shooting 54.1% and averaging 17.6 points over the past 10 games.

Quel’Ron House is averaging 14.9 points, 3.2 assists and 1.8 steals for the Salukis. Aligbe is averaging 11.1 points over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Purple Aces: 2-8, averaging 67.2 points, 23.9 rebounds, 12.5 assists, 4.9 steals and 2.8 blocks per game while shooting 44.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 82.2 points per game.

Salukis: 7-3, averaging 68.3 points, 33.0 rebounds, 12.6 assists, 8.9 steals and 3.8 blocks per game while shooting 43.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 62.7 points.

___

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.