Players from Charlotte help unknown Evansville shock No. 1 Kentucky — and the country
Evansville University is a private college in Indiana with a Division I basketball program that flew largely under the radar until Tuesday night — when the Purple Aces stunned No. 1-ranked Kentucky in a 67-64 upset.
Two players from Charlotte helped them pull off the stunning result.
Artur Labinowicz, a redshirt junior, and freshman Marcus Henderson are natives of the Queen City on the Evansville roster.
It was the first time in program history that Evansville beat an Associated Press-ranked team on the road, according to ESPN. It also was Kentucky’s first loss on its home court to an unranked non-conference opponent while ranked No. 1 in the nation.
The magnitude of the victory wasn’t lost on Labinowicz and Henderson, who took to Twitter after the game to celebrate.
So who are they, exactly?
Labinowicz is a transfer from Coastal Carolina, where he set a “career mark with 32 points against Georgia State” that included six 3-pointers, according to his bio.
He lists Charlotte as his home city but finished his high school career at Combine Academy in Lincolnton — a boarding school and “professional sports performance center,” its website states. He averaged 24 points a game while there.
Before that, Labinowicz played for Butler High School and helped lead the team to a 23-4 record during the 2014-15 season.
He wears No. 2 for Evansville and played 18 minutes against Kentucky, scoring six points to help propel the Purple Aces to victory.
Henderson signed with the Purple Aces in 2018. The 6-foot, 2-inch guard came from United Faith Christian Academy in Charlotte, but he previously played for Statesville Christian High.
According to a release announcing his commitment to Evansville, Henderson averaged 12.5 points per game while at Statesville Christian and helped lead the team to a 27-6 record.
He was the Purple Aces’ lone signee for the class of 2019, the Evansville Courier and Press reported.
He didn’t play against Kentucky on Tuesday night but is featured next to head coach Walter McCarty in a Bleacher Report photo widely circulated on social media — a side-by-side comparison of a clapping McCarty and Kentucky’s head coach, John Calipari, with his head in his hands.
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 12:47 PM.
