There's less than 48 hours of turnaround for Princeton make their way to Evansville, IN and take on the host Purple Aces in the first round of the 2012 College Basketball Invitational.
I'm hustling to get to the game while simultaneously arranging a "Know! Your! Foe" Q&A, but in the meantime a quick preview of this Missouri Valley Conference opponent can be found after the jump.
The Tigers have faced Evansville once previously, a horrible 53-32 loss at Roberts Stadium in December of 2007. No Princeton players who saw action that evening are still on the team. Current Purple Aces head coach Marty Simmons was in his first season when Princeton came to town.
You can read a full recap of a game that for a stretch featured more shot clock violations than field goals here.
The 2011-12 Purple Aces have a 16-15 record and were 9-9 in the MVC.
They don't have a lot of size (their major contributors are all between 6'1" and 6'6") but they play at a fast tempo (98th nationally) and have the 61st-ranked offense in DI.
One thing Evansville does very well is get to the free throw line! They're seventh nationally in percentage of points coming off the stripe and have converted 555 free throws, 19th in the land.
6'5" junior Colt Ryan is their leading scorer, dropping 20.2 points per game, one of three players in double figures. Ryan is shooting 42.7% from three point range and is in the Top 500 in 10 different statistical categories.
Teams shoot the ball very well against them, especially from inside the arc. When foes aren't scoring they're turning the ball over a frightening 24.6% of the time.
Their best win was a surprise of Creighton in Evansville, 65-57 and they have seven wins over Top 100 teams according to Pomeroy (Northern Iowa, Missouri State, Illinois State, Creighton, Northern Iowa again and twice versus Missouri State).
Over the previous 10 games the Purple Aces are 6-4 including a conference tournament loss to Creighton.
Their worst loss of the season according to the computers was at Illinois-Chicago.
Official site : Team stats : KenPom scouting report : StatSheet
RPI: 131
Sagarin: 117
Pomeroy: 113
