Outside of its neck of Indiana, Evansville basketball wasn’t on college basketball radars entering the season.
That all changed on Tuesday when the Purple Aces stunned No. 1 Kentucky in Rupp Arena to stake a claim for the biggest story of this very early basketball season.
Making the win even sweeter? Evansville got paid $90,000 for the visit.
Why the big payday?
The Louisville Courier-Journal did a dive into the economics of a mid-major school like Evansville and reported that the $90,000 payment Kentucky offered Evansville to make the road trip is standard fare from top-level programs.