Evansville 79, Illinois St. 62

Feb 20, 2013, 11:21 pm

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Colt Ryan continued his climb up the scoring charts, pouring in 31 points as Evansville defeated Illinois State 79-62 Wednesday night.

Ryan now has 2,092 career points and is just 144 points shy of Evansville's all-time leader, Larry Humes (2,236 from 1963-66), with three regular-season games plus the Missouri Valley Conference tournament remaining. Ryan also moved past Bradley's Roger Phegley (1974-78) into 11th place on the MVC all-time scoring list.

The Purple Aces (15-13, 8-8 Missouri Valley) never trailed Wednesday night, jumping out to an 11-2 lead en route to a 42-33 halftime advantage. Evansville stretched its lead to as many as 23 points in the second half.

Ned Cox added 16 points for Evansville and Egidijus Mockevicius had 11 rebounds.

Tyler Brown scored 21 points for Illinois State (16-12, 7-9), which had won seven of its past nine games after starting 0-6 in conference play. Jackie Carmichael added 14 rebounds.