Evansville Purple Aces (4-9, 0-2 MVC) at Illinois State Redbirds (7-6, 1-1 MVC)

Normal, Illinois; Saturday, 5 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Illinois State hosts Evansville after Nevaeh Thomas scored 25 points in Illinois State's 96-69 victory over the Indiana State Sycamores.

The Redbirds have gone 3-2 at home. Illinois State scores 77.2 points and has outscored opponents by 8.2 points per game.

The Purple Aces have gone 0-2 against MVC opponents. Evansville is 1-2 when it wins the turnover battle and averages 19.9 turnovers per game.

Illinois State makes 49.0% of its shots from the field this season, which is 7.5 percentage points higher than Evansville has allowed to its opponents (41.5%). Evansville averages 63.6 points per game, 5.4 fewer points than the 69.0 Illinois State gives up to opponents.

The Redbirds and Purple Aces match up Saturday for the first time in MVC play this season.

TOP PERFORMERS: Maya Wong is averaging 7.2 points and 3.9 assists for the Redbirds.

Maggie Hartwig is scoring 17.5 points per game and averaging 8.9 rebounds for the Purple Aces.

LAST 10 GAMES: Redbirds: 5-5, averaging 78.0 points, 36.4 rebounds, 14.0 assists, 5.1 steals and 2.7 blocks per game while shooting 49.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 68.7 points per game.

Purple Aces: 2-8, averaging 61.6 points, 31.6 rebounds, 12.2 assists, 7.9 steals and 3.2 blocks per game while shooting 37.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 70.8 points.

___

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