Shocker report: WSU 61, Evansville 41

Saturday’s box score

Evansville center Egidijus Mockevicius registered four double-doubles in five MVC games. He started MVC game No. 6 by missing a layup and committing a turnover and things never got better for the 6-foot-10 junior.

The Shockers held him to a season-low two points on 1-of-6 shooting. He grabbed eight rebounds in 28 minutes before fouling out. WSU’s Darius Carter and Shaq Morris teamed up to guard Mockevicius and tilt the edge in the paint.

“I just tried my best not to let him get the ball,” Carter said. “We got good help from the guards and it was really a team effort.”

Carter also did a good job slowing down Aces curling off screens while not letting Mockevicius get open for layups and dunks.

“I’ve got to stay level (with the screen) and stop (D.J. Balentine) from curling as much as I can,” Carter said. “I’ve also got to not be too far off the big, so they don’t slip and go to the basket.”

Between Carter and Morris, Mockevicius rarely got the ball. When he did, the Shockers made him shoot guarded shots.

“Darius Carter did a wonderful job on the Big E,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “That’s a great effort by him. Shaq Morris came in and gave us some nice minutes off the bench.”

Carter made 6 of 12 shots and is 29 of 47 from the field (61.7 percent) in five games since starting MVC play 1 of 8 at Drake. Morris scored nine points on 3-of-5 shooting.

Evansville players said they weren’t ready to play at the tip.

That is often something the losing team says when they’re not sure what went wrong. Regardless, the Shockers looked more prepared to take on a hostile crowd than the Aces did with a chance to knock off the Valley favorite at home.

“We came out too slow,” Aces guard Duane Gibson said.

“We got frustrated,” Balentine said. “Those are the times when we’ve got to come together and make sure we get a bucket or get a stop. If we all would have come with a mind-set that we can definitely win this game, I think it would have been a different outcome.”

Balentine and WSU’s Tekele Cotton are used to these meetings. They’ve been matched up for the past three seasons, Balentine as the prime-time scorer and Cotton as the defender.

Balentine enjoys it, despite the obvious challenge.

“I love playing against Tekele, not because it’s easy to score,” he said. “He’s a great defender. He gives me a lot of respect, always talking to me and telling me ‘great shot, tough shot.’ He’s the best defender in the league for a reason.”

Cotton completed a two-game stretch against two of the Valley’s top scorers with typical results. On Wednesday, he held Southern Illinois’ Anthony Beane to 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting. Balentine needed 17 shots to score 16 points, four below his average.

“You’ve just to get ready mentally and just really zone in on what they do,” Cotton said. “It’s just basketball, at the end of the day.”

WSU leads the series 26-16 and tied it on the road 10-all. The Shockers won their fourth straight over the Aces … WSU held Evansville to its lowest shooting percentage (30 percent) in four seasons playing at the Ford Center. Evansville’s 41 points represents its lowest total since a 76-38 loss at Missouri State in 2008 and its lowest in a home game since a 57-41 loss to Creighton in 2002 … Evansville guard Adam Wing played for the first time since Dec. 21. He missed six games with a quad strain.

Paul Suellentrop

This story was originally published January 17, 2015 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Shocker report: WSU 61, Evansville 41."