Wabash stayed close early in its matchup at Division I Evansville Wednesday night. A second-half outburst by the Purple Aces ended in an 83-39 defeat for the visiting Little Giants.
 
Wabash held an early 2-1 lead after Evan Frank scored the first basket of the game to answer a Purple Aces' free throw. The Little Giants used combination of Frank inside and the hot hand of  Duncan Roy from three-point range to stay within striking distance through the first half  until Evansville put together  a 17-2 run over a four-minute stretch near the end of the first half to move in front by 22 points. The Little Giant regrouped behind a seven-point output by Frank before ending the half with Roy hitting one of his three first-half three pointers for a 43-28 Wabash deficit at the break.
 
"Evansville has really good length and athleticism on the perimeter. They also have a seven-foot one-inch guy standing behind our number one offensive option. That was a challenge. Evan is crafty down low and makes good moves and had some success against different Evansville players guarding him down there.
 
"I was really happy with the way we played defensively most of the first half. Even when the game stretched out in terms of the score, it was more our offense leading to easy baskets for them with turnovers or rebounds off missed shots than it was our defense. Our defense was pretty good in the half court sets. It was not one of our better rebounding nights, but it was the best opponent to match us on the glass, as well."
 
Evansville (3-4) put the game away in the second half, limiting the Little Giants to a Roy triple and a Frank jumper as the only baskets of the period. Wabash finished the half 2-of-26 from the field and were outscored 40-11
 
"When you schedule games like this, what happened in the second half is always the fear," Brumett said. "What can help us going forward is understanding the ball pressure by Evansville really bothered us. It really took us out of what we wanted to do. While we will see some ball pressure like that here and there throughout the year, we won't see it come in wave after wave like it did tonight.
 
"We want to take some things away from this game to move forward. I think if we watch the first half of the film we can find some positives and find some things to critique. But we also want to turn the page. We've got a big game on Saturday with a really important week to follow bunched up before finals."
Roy led the Little Giants with 13 points on 4-of-8 shooting from three-point range. Frank added 11 points. Logan White snared a team-high seven rebounds while Frank and Roy grabbed six apiece. Wabash matched the Purple Aces on the offensive glass with each team finishing with 15.
 
Ryan Taylor scored 21 points to lead Evansville in scoring. Willie Wiley chipped in 14 points.
Wabash opens the North Coast Athletic Conference portion of its season schedule at home Saturday versus the College of Wooster. The Fighting Scots lost 65-59 Wednesday night at home to Denison to fall to 1-1 in NCAC games.